Greco-Egyptian Convergence
by Asmodeus Stahl
Summary: Instead of Percy and Carter meeting and fighting the Long Island Swamp Monster, it was Percy and Sadie. How will this affect the rest of the Demigods and Magicians mini-series? Read to find out! Eventual Percy/Sadie. If you like it, please follow, favorite and review. Rated T for language.
1. The Son of Sobek Part 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. This is an idea that I thought of while writing Lord and Lady Lupus and after reading a Fanfic where each chapter was set from the perspective of a girl who had a crush on Percy. I don't remember the name of the fic, but if you do, feel free to PM me with the name of it! This story will be based on Demigods and Magicians, but with twists here and there. Originally I was going to find other villains/antagonists to use, but no matter where I looked, I couldn't find any other Greco-Egyptian God than Serapis, which was my hint that I should just stick with the villains/antagonists from the original series (Yes I call it a series, I read it when it was 3 separate installments and not 1 companion book). This will be split into 4 main sections, Son of Sobek, Staff of Serapis, Crown of Ptolemy, and Post-Crown of Ptolemy. The chapters will be named accordingly. Enough chit-chat, let's start the story! **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

Hey everyone, Sadie Kane here. The reason I'm making this recording is that for some reason Zeus wants myself, Carter, Percy, and Annabeth to tell you about the background of the new Olympian sub-council. I figured it's best to start from the very beginning of the story, so here goes nothing.

[Telling everybody about your new boyfriend, huh?]

[Shut up Carter! You'll get your turn to talk.]

Right then, sorry about that, Carter can be a bit of a dick sometimes [and no Carter, that doesn't mean you can talk].

It all started about 3 months after we defeated Apophis. It wasn't long after the final battle that Walt/Anubis and I broke up. I couldn't really handle the whole 2 people inhabiting the body of my boyfriend idea. We parted as friends, which was nice, but I haven't seen them in forever. Anyway, Carter was on a date with Zia, and Amos told me that there had been multiple instances of magic in a nearby swamp over on Long Island that as far as he knew hadn't been caused by a magician. Sensing an opportunity to get out of the monotony of Brooklyn House, I left Jaz in charge and went to go scope out the scene.

When I got there, I immediately saw the problem. Someone had created a _petsuchos_, or Son of Sobek and left. It didn't take long before a black, winged horse landed a few feet behind the _petsuchos_ and a cute black haired boy with sea-green eyes, wearing an orange T-shirt and jeans got off, petted the horse's mane, pulled out a pen, uncapped it, turning it into a sword and charged the monster.

I sighed to myself as I thought, '_That boy must be some kind of a combat magician that doesn't know what he's up against. He can't kill the _petsuchos_, it's immortal._'

Sure enough, his shiny bronze sword that came out of his pen did nothing to the monster except annoying it. I knew that the boy would be in trouble if he kept poking and prodding the monster with his sword, so I summoned my staff from the Duat, which Carter had been helping me with, and pointed it at the _petsuchos_ and yelled "Sa-mir!" All across the _petsuchos_' body, the hieroglyph for the word appeared and the monster stumbled away from the now shocked and confused boy.

I figured that now was as good a time as any to introduce myself to the obviously confused boy, so I walked out of the heavy treeline that I had been inadvertently hiding in since I arrived in the clearing and noticed the _petsuchos_. The boy looked at me, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Daughter of Hecate maybe? I don't think I've seen you at Camp before, yet you seem well trained."

The look on my face changed from relief that the _petsuchos_ was gone for the moment to confusion as to what the heck the boy was talking about. The look on my face prompted the boy's eyes to narrow even more as he said, "Not Hecate then, Trivia? I don't see a _probatio _tablet around your neck or a tattoo on your forearm though…"

The look on my face grew seemingly impossibly more confused and the boy said, "You used magic, I know that but you don't recognize either form of the Goddess of Magic's name, so what are you?"

I immediately groaned and said, "I don't know who those people or places you mentioned are. I am a magician following the path of Isis from the 21st nome. I assume you're some kind of combat magician?"

The boy looked at me confused and said, "I'm no magician, I'm a demigod. The only demigod magicians are those that are children of Hecate, or Trivia if you'd rather. There's no way mortal did what you just did, so you've got to be a demigod. Yet, here you are, knowing nothing of either Camp or your parentage, and you look like you're 13, which means you should've been claimed by now. As for Isis and 21st nome, I have no clue what those are."

I stumbled back a bit when he said 'demigod.' I'd heard the term of course, but as far as I knew it wasn't an Egyptian term. I said, "If you've never heard of Isis or the 21st nome… I take it you're not Egyptian then?"

The boy reared back in shock and confusion and said, "Egyptian?! Those gods are still around too. C'mon Zeus, how much are you not telling us after all we've fucking done for you?!"

Thunder rumbled in the background and the boy mumbled something that had to do with someone called Thunderbritches being an asshole. He composed himself, stretched his hand out, and said "Considering you got rid of that monster that for some reason Riptide couldn't send to Tartarus, I might as well introduce myself. The name's Percy, Percy Jackson."

I smiled a bit and said, "Even if you are a little dense at times, I'm not going to leave someone hanging. My name's Sadie Kane."

We shook hands and as we put our hands down I said, "If you're not Egyptian, then what are you?"

Percy raised an eyebrow and said, "You seem like a studious person and I gave away so many references, why don't you take a guess?"

I shook my head slowly and said, "Of course I have to guess. Let me think. You mentioned terms like Tartarus and Zeus, so, Greek?"

Percy smiled a bit and replied, "Yeah. Son of Poseidon at your service."

"Well Percy, it's been nice talking to you, but we really need to find that monster."

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**Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed!**

**Asmodeus Stahl**

**P.S. I just want to give a special shoutout to Lovingh3art for being the only person to do **_**anything**_** with my Harry Potter story. Seriously guys, Only 11 people have viewed the story, 1 person from Thailand, 1 person from Jordan, 1 person from India, 1 person from Canada, 2 people from France, and 5 people from the US. Out of all 11 people, only Lovingh3art favorited the story. Nobody followed it, nor reviewed it, which was kind of disappointing to me since I put a lot of effort into researching and writing the story. So please, go check it out along with Lord and Lady Lupus if you haven't already done so!**


	2. The Son of Sobek Part 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. So, originally I was going to wait until some people reviewed this story (we're at no reviews right now, which is kinda depressing not gonna lie), but then I saw that there were 26 followers and 14 favorites on the story and I thought to myself over Thanksgiving Dinner '**_**You know… I might as well write chapter two in the hopes that it gets reviews.'**_** So here I am, writing chapter two. I hope you enjoy!**

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

**Percy POV:**

So, before I get back to the story, no, I'm not doing a voice recording like Sadie. She and Carter tried to convince me and Annabeth to do it, but we (read: I) argued otherwise. Somehow we (read: I) managed to come out on top. How I came out on top, I don't know, but if I had to take a guess, it would be Zia's threat to burn Carter's bits off if he didn't stop arguing with me. After that comment, I don't think either of the Egyptians were willing to take a chance with her. To be completely honest, I wouldn't have either. She is _scary_. I thought Clarisse was scary. Boy was I wrong. Zia is on a whole other level when she's angry at someone. Anyway, enough with that tangent, on with the story.

It took us a little under fifteen minutes to find the monster. This is, of course, counting all the time we spent bickering about which direction to go to look for the monster. I wanted to look over the nearby hill, but Sadie wanted to go deeper into the swamp. We ended up taking Sadie's route due to her Annabeth-like logic that if it looks like a crocodile, then it'll act like a crocodile and do what crocodiles normally do, go to the water. We walked for about 10 minutes before we heard a loud _CRUNCH_ coming from _the other direction_. Of course, the one time that I don't continue to argue for my idea, it's the right one…

Upon hearing the _CRUNCH_, we turned around and ran back to where we originally met up, and then up the hill that I wanted to check in the first place. Lo and behold, there the monster was, chewing on a green Prius with a bumper sticker whose message was so inane that I'm not even going to bother repeating it. Anyway, as soon as the monster closed its jaws around the car and bit it in half, a bunch of mortal kids charged out of nowhere and started spraying the monster with Super Soakers and throwing water balloons at it all while yelling at the top of their lungs. I guess they were hiding behind some other cars. What the Mist made the mortals see, I have no clue. Perhaps another group of kids with water guns, I have no clue, but either way they were in danger, and one look from Sadie told me that she would castrate me, _and then_ kill me if any of the kids got hurt. Naturally, I had no intention of letting the mortals get hurt, even before the look that Sadie shot at me. Almost instantaneously we began to shout things like "Run!" and "Get away from it!"

Surprisingly, the kids listened to us and scattered, leaving us alone with the _petsuchos_. Just as I was about to turn to Sadie to see if she had any insight on what we could do, I heard her yell the same spell she'd used earlier when we first met, "Sa-Mir!"

I should really get around to learning what all of these different Egyptian spells do. I've known Carter and Sadie for months now and seen them do many different spells, yet I haven't bothered asking them what they all do. I'll bug Sadie about it later once I'm done writing, she and Annabeth have been on mine and Carter's asses about getting our parts done since the two of them already finished their parts.

Sadie is looking over my shoulder and yelling at me to get back to work and I really don't want to piss her off, so I'll end that tangent there and get back to writing. Maybe I should just write another book containing all the random tangents that I've gone off on while writing. I'm sure that that publisher in Boston would be willing to publish it and people would find it amusing…

I did it again, didn't I? I'll get back to the story now, I promise.

Right then, so after Sadie yelled her magic spell, the monster almost immediately turned around to face us, glaring at us with its yellow eyes, looking like a cross between Godzilla and Sith from Star Wars. I sighed and shook my head slowly a bit before saying, "And here I was hoping that we could get a plan _before_ we attacked it."

Sadie replied sarcastically, "Well sorry Mr. President, I should ask you for your opinion before doing anything."

I quipped back, "Well, I was right about where to find this overgrown crocodile."

Sadie looked like she was about to say something, but I cut her off saying, "Uh… Is the _petsuchos_ following our conversation, or is it just me?"

Sadie took one look at the _petsuchos_, nodded emphatically, and replied shakily, "No, it's not just you. It does appear to be looking at us."

Naturally, at that moment the _petsuchos_ got hit in the back of the head with some rocks and scrap metal the mortal kids had found. It turned around to try and figure out what was going on, which gave Sadie and me more time to figure out what the Hades we were going to do.

I immediately asked Sadie, "So how do we kill it? Riptide didn't do a thing to it."

Sadie sighed as she replied, "We can't kill it, it's immortal."

I grumbled back, "I've vaporized _plenty_ of immortals and sent them to Tartarus…"

Sadie raised an eyebrow and responded, "You'll have to tell me about that once we're done. Back to the _petsuchos_ though. Even if you could somehow destroy its body, it would just reappear somewhere nearby. The necklace around its neck is enchanted with the power of the Crocodile God, Sobek. To beat the monster, we have to get that necklace off of him. Then it _should_ shrink back down to a normal crocodile."

"You know, in all my years of English class, I never thought that I would hate the word 'should' as much as I have since I found out I was a demigod."

Sadie snorted and replied, "Same here, except replace demigod with magician. Distract the _petsuchos_, I've got something up my sleeve that might help us."

I raised an eyebrow at that but acceded to her command since I was used to being the distraction anyway. I told Sadie, "I'm going to run around to its side and try and distract it while you do whatever you're going to do."

Before I could run around to the side of the _petsuchos_, Sadie grabbed my arm, looked me directly in the eyes, and said, "If you get yourself hurt or killed, I swear to Ra…"

In return, I gave Sadie my trademark half-smirk, half-smile, and said, "Don't worry about me, I know what I'm doing."

I then ran off to the right side of the _petsuchos_ and closed my eyes to begin to focus on drawing all the water I could out of the _petsuchos_' body in the form of sweat. After holding my focus for a few minutes, I opened my eyes to peek at the water level and saw that it was already about knee-high. I smiled to myself and began the real distraction. I slowly began to raise my arms and began to force the water to form a giant whirlpool encompassing the entirety of the cul-de-sac. I figured that this was as much distraction I'd be able to pull off, so I opened my eyes to try and find Sadie. There was no sign of Sadie, nor the mortal kids, but I could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. At the time I figured that they were maybe 80 or 100 feet away. It turns out that I was wrong. Apparently I can hear better in water. The police were a few _miles_ away when I heard them.

Just as I was about to try and find the kids and tell them to stall the cops, I saw a flash of movement near the _petsuchos_ and immediately looked at it. It was a small bird. At first, I had no clue what kind of bird it was, but being friends with Annabeth for so long had taught me enough to recognize that it was a kite. Now, what Annabeth's lessons did not cover, however, was how the Hades that bird was flying in near-hurricane force winds and why it was flying straight toward the _petsuchos_' back.

It didn't take me long to connect the dots. Sadie was nowhere in sight, and I knew that she wouldn't just run off. How did I know? I'm not sure, somehow I could tell that she wasn't that kind of person. There was also a bird flying towards a giant Crocodile monster in near hurricane-force winds. The last dot that sealed it for me was that Sadie was a magician. At that point, it became clear to me that Sadie was the kite flying straight towards the _petsuchos_. How? I wasn't exactly sure. I just chalked it up to Sadie's weird magic abilities. I mean, she's Egyptian, so who knows what she, Carter, Zia, and the other Egyptians can do, am I right?

Another tangent, I know, I should really get back to writing the story before Sadie comes back and yells at me again. That girl has a temper...

It took another minute or two after I noticed it for the kite to land on the _petsuchos_' back, at which point it, as I had guessed, turned into Sadie.

It was just our luck that at that point the mortal kids came back out of hiding and began pelting the _petsuchos_ with metal scraps. I sighed to myself and thought, '_Of course things just _had _to get worse…_"

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything that seems familiar to you probably comes directly out of The Son of Sobek. I did take a few artistic liberties with the timing of everything plotwise to better fit the story, but most of the rest of the Son of Sobek will be the same. **

**Shoutouts to:**

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**Asmodeus Stahl**


	3. The Son of Sobek Part 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence.**

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

So I'm clinging onto the _petsuchos' _neck holding on for my bloody life, and then I feel something whiz right by my ear. I turn my head to see some idiotic mortal kids throwing stuff at the _petsuchos_. I had thought that Percy had chased them off with his personal hurricane. I guess I underestimated him.

[Oh, come on Sadie! You know it's not my fault! I don't control mortals!]

[You realize that mortals, like all humans, are about 60% water. If you can control water and other liquids, why can't you control the water in the mortals?]

[I dunno I've never thought of it that way. I'm not sure I even want to try…]

[Don't even think about trying it on me you lovable git.]

Anyway… where was I? Ah right, me clinging onto the _petsuchos' _back for my life. So, as I'm trying to figure out what to do, I heard Percy calling out to the mortal kids "Hey, you hear those sirens over there? You need to go stall the cops. Get them out of here, okay?"

I could just barely make out the form of one of the kids saluting Percy, then he and his comrades ran off to go stall the cops or whatever. He then called out to me, "I'll keep ugly here distracted, you focus on getting that _petsuchos _back down to size."

My brain immediately thought '_of course he would say that…_'

Percy then ramped up the strength of the hurricane. To be quite honest, it gave me flashbacks of my time at the shores of Chaos fighting Apophis with Carter and the gang. As the storm increased in strength to what I feel would be considered a Category 5 by mortals, I turned my attention back to the _petsuchos_.

It appeared to have a necklace around its neck. The Necklace's clasp was engraved with 4 hieroglyphic symbols that I read literally as "SBK God." I took it to mean that the necklace was imbued with the power of Sobek, the crocodile god, which was why the croc was so large.

I could think of no way to get the necklace off of him than to start slamming my hands down on the different symbols on the clasp. It turns out it wasn't the god symbol that opened the necklace as I had originally thought, but rather the basket symbol that represented the letter K. Who would've guessed? I sure as hell didn't.

I had to leap off the _petsuchos_' back as it grew smaller and smaller. Fortunately, my training in the 21st nome helped out and I was able to safely roll over to Percy and pop up onto my feet right beside him. Together we walked over to where the _petsuchos _had been standing to find a baby crocodile. We both looked at each other with a face that said, "What the bloody fucking hell?"

I then said to Percy, "He's kinda cute…" I, of course, neglected to add "like you." That, however, is a matter for another time.

He said, "I mean, sure… my question is what do we do with him and that necklace. We don't need another _petsuchos _running around. I'm sure my ex and her siblings would love to do some research on the necklace, and I could probably find a place for the croc at Camp, but I'm not sure that's a good idea."

I frowned at the mention of an ex, but said nothing of it, instead choosing to say, "Well, since the necklace is Egyptian, I'm sure we could do some research on it over at the 21st nome. And I'm sure Phillip of Macedonia would love a playmate."

He smiled and said, "Then, by all means, take it. As you said, it's Egyptian, not Greek. He rightly belongs with you guys."

I smiled back as I responded, "I'll take it over there now. Wanna meet up for food later?"

He laughed and said, "Why not. I'm always hungry. I know a good burger place, I got a phone earlier this summer for my Birthday, so if you give me your number, I'll text you the address."

In my head, I was freaking out that he asked for my number, but on the outside, I maintained my facade and said, "Sure. I'm looking forward to it."

I then pulled out my phone and said, "Send yourself a text from my phone, that way you have my number."

He then typed his number, 646-262-3248, into my phone and then handed it back to me with a smile and said, "See you soon."

He then whistled and hopped on the back of a black, winged horse that appeared seemingly out of nowhere and waved as he disappeared heading towards Long Island, leaving me with the croc and the necklace.

I smiled to myself and said out loud, "Well, it looks like I scored myself a date with a cute boy. Score: Sadie 1, Everybody else: 0."

* * *

**Percy POV:**

Surprised to hear from me? Bet you thought this was just Sadie's chapter, huh? Nope. We're both doing this chapter. Reason being, I actually stuck around for a little bit after I 'left.' I heard Sadie's comment and smiled to myself, because being honest here, I kinda had a crush on Sadie by that point. She was everything that Annabeth was and more.

You're probably wondering what happened between me and Annabeth. Well, a few weeks after the fight with Gaea, we both came to the conclusion that things just weren't working out for us. Tartarus had just been too traumatic an experience. We broke up on good terms and are still good friends. Annabeth at that point didn't have a boyfriend at that point, but she got one, don't worry.

You're probably also about to berate me for developing a crush on Sadie just a few hours after meeting her. Well, deal with it, I'm not the only one. Annabeth was that way with me back when we first met. So, I'm well within normalcy for us Greeks. Deal with it.

Anyway, where was Sadie? Right, me 'leaving.'

So after I left for good, I landed Blackjack back at the stables, gave him a few sugar cubes, and went immediately to Chiron to tell him what happened. Chiron was busy teaching archery, so I knew my conversation would have to wait, so I went to my cabin and grabbed my phone.

I quickly texted Sadie the address of Le Parker Meridien, the hotel on West 57th that Thalia, Annabeth, and I went to after the Titan War and asked if we could meet up there in an hour. She immediately texted back that she would see me there.

When I got to the restaurant, Sadie was already there waiting for me, and despite her assurances that she'd only been waiting a minute or two, it still bugged me that she'd been there before I was.

Out of sheer coincidence, we sat down at the exact same booth that Thalia, Annabeth and I had sat in after the Titan War. I decided to start the conversation by saying, "Any ideas on where that _petsuchos_ came from? It's an Egyptian monster in Greek territory, that makes me guess that it was an Egyptian that created it."

Sadie sighed and said, "Unfortunately I think you're right that it was an Egyptian who created the _petsuchos_. I have a bad feeling about who it is too. Recently one of Ancient Egypt's worst villains somehow managed to escape our clutches. His name is Setne and he has the Book of Thoth, which is basically a magic book that he can use to wreak havoc on the world, mortal and immortal."

I shuddered at the thought of the world being destroyed and said, "That can't be good. Based on what you just told me, this Setne character seems like a likely person to create the _petsuchos_ and draw us together."

Sadie looked deep in thought, so I added a comment that I knew would make her smile, "But what he didn't account for is how well we work together. I bet he thought that we would try and kill each other or something. Nope. I kinda like you. I'd rather not kill you."

As predicted, Sadie smiled and responded, "I kinda like you too. I agree that we work well together. Setne really underestimated us and how well we work together."

I then said, "I highly doubt things are going to end here. We're going to need to let the rest of our friends know."

Sadie sighed and said, "You're absolutely right, I'll let the rest of the 21st nome along with Amos know. Amos can let the rest of the Magicians know. I assume you have some way of contacting the rest of your Greek friends?"

I frowned a bit at the reference to multiple groups of magicians, but said, "It's easier than you. There's only one group of Greeks and we're all in the same spot. There's the Romans, but they're all the way on the other side of the country, so I think that they'll be safe from Setne's meddling."

Sadie smiled and said, "Well, it looks like we have a plan. You'll have to introduce me to your Greek friends sometime."

I smiled back and said, "You'll have to introduce me to your Egyptian friends at some point then."

We sat there in awkward silence before Sadie said, "It was nice fighting with you."

I responded, "Right back at you," before deciding to go out on a limb and saying "Well, it was really nice spending these past few hours with you and I'd like to get to know you better. Wanna meet-up sometime for lunch or something?"

Sadie blushed and smirked softly before saying, "Are you asking me out on a date?"

Now it was my turn to blush a tiny bit as I said, "Only if you want it to be."

Sadie laughed and smiled at me, "I'd love to go on a date with you Percy."

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything that seems familiar to you probably comes directly out of The Son of Sobek. I did take a few artistic liberties with the timing of everything plotwise to better fit the story, but most of the rest of the Son of Sobek will be the same. That's the end of the Son of Sobek portion of the fic. Next update will start the Staff of Serapis where we get to see Carter and Annabeth interacting. Warning: Staff of Serapis will follow canon less than Son of Sobek for multiple reasons including the whole Percy/Sadie thing.**

**A Note on Percy's Phone Number: The phone number Percy gave Sadie's area code is one of the Manhattan area codes in use at the time that this story takes place. That being said, that likely is a real number, so I apologize to whoever's number that is, and urge you all **_**not**_** to call that number.**

**Shoutouts to:**

**Guest, Znonymus, Starkeeper-the-Storyteller, and StickyFingaz for Reviewing**

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**Asmodeus Stahl**


	4. The Staff of Serapis Part 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. Sorry for the delay in posting. Life has been Hell and I just now found a chance to write another chapter. Updates are going to be infrequent or nonexistent for the next month and a half or so, but after that, I'm going to try and get back to regular updates. Now, back to the story!**

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

**Annabeth POV:**

I guess it's my turn now, huh? Fair warning before I get into my portion of the story, there is no romance, so if you're looking for me to magically start dating someone such as another camper or one of Carter and Sadie's trainees, you might want to stop reading.

Alright then, now that I have that out of the way, let me begin my part of the story.

Despite not dating Percy anymore, I was still good friends with him and his mother, and they had invited me over for dinner that night to catch up. My day was going pretty shitty, so it was nice to know that I was going to have a bright end to the day.

What's that? You want to hear about my shitty day? Well, let me tell you.

I spent almost all morning doing makeup work for school because skipping classes on a regular basis to fight some Greek Monster that had reformed and escaped Tartarus or some rogue minor god (yes, we still have those, unfortunately) was really messing up my GPA. Then I turned down going to see a movie with Percy, Sadie, Carter, Nico, Will, Thalia, and some of the others so I could try out for a summer internship in architecture at a local firm. Unfortunately, my brain was mush by that point, so I'm pretty sure I bombed that interview.

After the interview, by which point it was almost 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I was able to make my way to the F train to head uptown to Percy's place. Of course, as I made my way through Washington Square Park, I stepped in a fresh pile of Cow poop that looked like it had been divinely placed there just for me.

Of course, already being in a bad mood, I didn't think before glaring at the sky and yelling "Hera!"

Go figures the other pedestrians looked at me like I was off my rocker, but I honestly didn't give a shit, I was tired of Hera's shenanigans and was already in a bad mood. I mean, seriously, I've done _so_ many quests for the Queen of Olympus, but still, she uses what must be a Manhattan-based fleet of stealth cows to leave little 'presents' for me right where I can step into them. As Sadie would put it, Hera's a bloody wanker.

Anyway, that was my day. By the time I got to the West Fourth Street Station, I was cranky, exhausted, and just wanted to go to Percy's. But of course, the Gods had other plans for me. Standing in the middle of the fucking station was a two-headed monster that took the crown for all the things that I had asked "What were the Gods thinking?" about. It looked like a little child had taken a lion and a wolf and shoved them into a hermit crab shell.

The shell itself was a rough brown spiral, somewhat like a waffle cone, but with a six-foot-long jagged seam running down the center of it as if it had been cut in half and then glued back together at one point. Coming out of the left side of the shell was the wolf with two forelegs and its head showing, and then coming out of the right side was the lion with its golden mane.

It appeared that the two heads didn't get along because they kept weaving left and right across the platform seemingly going in two directions until they suddenly stopped and sniffed the air, at which point I knew I was screwed. Monsters had the unfortunate ability to smell demigods, so once it stopped and began to sniff I knew it had caught a whiff of my scent and was trying to locate me.

Seeing that the monster was sniffing the air trying to find me, I instinctively reached for my back pocket where I kept my Celestial Bronze knife that Luke had given me all those years ago. A sinking feeling then spread through my gut as I realized that I had lost it in Tartarus and my Drakon Bone sword that Damasen gave me was sitting in my trunk in Cabin 6 back at Camp. The best and only weapon I had was my heavy backpack full of heavy architecture books that I had picked up at the public library earlier that day.

At that point, the monster's two heads whipped around to look at me. That was when I began sizing up the situation, the monster was about thirty feet away and I was unarmed. Taking on the monster was not an ideal thing to do, but I am a child of Athena, I do what I have to do.

I raised my gaze to meet the monster's eyes and said, "Bring it on, Crabby. I hope you have a high tolerance for pain."

Crabby - you know what, I'm just going to call it Crabby from now on - snarled at me as if to say _look girl, you're crazy and I'd love to rip you to shreds right now, but I've got places to be_. It then turned around and bounded up a flight of stairs that led to the A train which had just arrived in the station.

That surprised me enough that I just stood there for a few seconds before charging after it. As I ran, I thought to myself, '_When given the chance, monsters usually always attack demigods… why is this one acting so odd?_'

Just a few seconds after Crabby bounded onto the A train, I jumped in after it, right before the doors closed and the train pulled away from the station into darkness. The train was so packed, I couldn't even _see_ Crabby until I heard someone close to the front of the car say "Watch it, freak!"

Of course, being a somewhat reckless demigod, I pushed through other passengers to follow Crabby from this car to the next. As I followed it, I noticed its shell glowing red surrounded by neon symbols - Greek Letters, astrological signs, and Egyptian Hieroglyphs. I groaned inwardly upon noticing the Hieroglyphs, wishing that I had Carter or Sadie with me as back up. A thought then crossed my mind - '_The shell hasn't always been doing that, and the glowing seems to be getting brighter the more we move. What the fuck?_'

It also didn't escape me that despite my vast knowledge of Greek monsters and spirits, I could not place a name on this one. That indicated to me that it might be Egyptian. I had no clue though, because, unlike Carter, I did not have a vast repertoire of _Egyptian _monsters and spirit names and appearances memorized.

As we got closer and closer to the next station, Fulton street, Crabby's aura became so powerful that even the mortals noticed it and were beginning to pass out or get sick to their stomachs. When we arrived at the station, all of the mortals still conscious fled the car, except one lady whose purse had been grabbed by Crabby in his teeth as she had tried to flee. I had to yell at Crabby to get her to let the purse go. He did not look happy about that.

It then roared in two-part harmony and all the car windows shattered and the unconscious mortals were scared back into consciousness, and then proceeded to flee. By the time the train began to move again a few seconds later, Crabby looked like he was about to pounce on me, so I gripped my backpack, preparing to take a swing. Then I noticed that the lion's left forearm was shaved and had a UPC code tattooed there and an obnoxious orange price tag reading $99.99 sticking out of the wolf's left ear.

I wasn't much of a fighter and I knew that if I swung, I would be ripped to shreds, so I started talking. I just sprouted out conjecture after conjecture about the wolf and the lion heads and how they had gotten together. Surprisingly, it seemed that I was correct about most, if not all, of my guesses.

As the train traveled under the East River, I started to freeze a bit due to the cold wind rushing through the broken windows. All my instincts told me to flee, but I couldn't. My joints felt like they were dissolving and Crabby's aura was getting brighter and brighter, filling up the room with more and more symbols.

A thought suddenly struck me as Crabby roared, sending a ripple of red light through the car, "You're heading somewhere, aren't you? The closer you get to wherever you're going, the stronger you're getting, right?"

At that, Crabby roared once again and his shell began to expand. I immediately understood what was happening now. I said, "There's a third head, isn't there? And you're trying to find it."

Crabby looked positively shocked, at which point I smirked and said, "Three is a magic number bozo, go figures you're looking for a third head."

I knew I couldn't let Crabby join up with the third head, so I defaulted back to talking. I decided that if I could create more discord between the two current heads, they would be more likely to fight with each other than find the third head, at which point I was hoping I could find a way to subdue it and send it to Tartarus or whatever the Egyptian equivalent was. Knowing that, I began to make it seem to Crabby like the two heads were talking shit about each other that the other head couldn't understand.

Somehow it worked long enough for the train to get to the High Street station in Brooklyn, where I saw a familiar brown-haired boy fighting a strange monster that looked like someone had taken a black Labrador retriever and replaced its back legs with the backend of a calcified tadpole, which must have been the third of Crabby's heads - Carter Kane.

Of course, Carter would be involved. The monster probably had something to do with Ancient Egypt and he was the 21st nome's resident Combat Mage.

From what I could see, Carter was trying to keep the Labrador head from getting into the train without using his combat avatar. He'd mentioned last time I saw him that he was trying to hone his physical fighting skills without the use of his combat avatar, so I assumed that's why he wasn't using his combat avatar.

Just before the doors closed again and the subway peeled away from the station, the Labrador head leaped into the car I was in, quickly followed by Carter. Once Carter had regained his footing, the four of us, myself, Carter, Crabby, and Crabby's third head just stood there for a short minute.

Of course, that silence didn't last long. The dog head let out a triumphant howl as if to say '_I found you!'_ Immediately both Carter and I groaned knowing that now we were going to have to stop Crabby and the Labrador head from merging together into one monster.

Being the reckless demigod I am, I immediately jumped onto Crabby's back, slowing it down with all the extra weight I added. Carter, on the other hand, pulled out a piece of twine and yelled "_Tas!_"The twine expanded in the air and looped itself around the Labrador head's calcified tadpole lower end, tripping it to the ground just a few feet away from where I was with Crabby.

It didn't take long before the Labrador Head managed to worm its way out of the twine Carter had tripped it with and for Crabby to start trying to buck me off. Not knowing what else to do, I slammed my twenty-pound book bag into the side of Crabby's lion head and then roped one of the straps through its wolf head and yanked hard.

Carter, on the other hand, went back to slicing at the Labrador head with his _Khopesh_ until the Labrador head suddenly lunged forward, headbutting Carter into one of the chairs on the other side of the car. This distracted me, so when Crabby tried to buck me off again, he succeeded, slamming me into the edge of the seat behind me.

At that, Crabby roared triumphantly, releasing a wave of red-hot energy that rippled through the car. In response to that wave of energy, the train tipped sideways, sending me weightless.

I don't know how long I was lying there, but the next thing I knew, Carter was shaking my shoulder saying, "Come on Annabeth. We have to move."

I opened my eyes to the world spinning, which made me quite dizzy. I could hear Emergency sirens wailing in the distance behind me as I laid down on my back on some prickly weeds.

I managed to sit up. I felt like someone was hammering hot nails into my rib cage. I did _not_ need to feel like the mortals' Jesus Christ at this point in time. As my vision cleared, I realized that I was lucky to be alive and not at DOA Recording Studios in LA waiting for Charon to take me across the River Styx. About 50 yards away, the subway train had tipped off the tracks. The car laid sideways in a broken, steaming zigzag of wreckage that reminded me of a _drakon_ carcass.

I couldn't see any mortals and prayed to Zeus that they had fled the train at the Fulton Street Station. It was still a disaster though.

I almost immediately recognized where I was: Rockaway Beach. A few hundred feet to my left were some vacant lots and bent chain link fences that gave way to a yellow sand beach dotted with tar and trash. The sea itself was churning under a dark, cloudy sky. To my right, past the train tracks, stood a row of apartment towers so dilapidated, they might have been make-believe buildings fashioned from old refrigerator boxes.

"Annabeth," Carter said as he shook my shoulder again. "I know you're probably in a little pain, but we need to move. I don't think that we want to be questioned by the cops with _this_ thing in tow."

Carter then moved over to his left, revealing the Labrador head flopping around like a fish out of water, its muzzle and paws all tied up with a golden rope.

Carter then stretched his hand out and pulled me up from the ground and said, "Nice to see you again. Let's get out of here before the police come and start asking too many questions."

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of the Staff of Serapis. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. More changes will come during the battle with Serapis, which may or may not be in the next chapter, I'm not sure. Like I said in the opening Author's Note, life is kind of hell right now, and updates will be close to nonexistent for a few more weeks. See you on the other side!**

**Before we get to the shoutouts, I just want to reply to a Guest Review I received. Yes, I'm aware that Percabeth is a thing. This story is not Percabeth and it clearly says that in the tags. If you don't like that, then don't read this story. It's as simple as that.**

**I don't mind flames that are constructively criticizing my writing, like the one that Kyle Preston Ross wrote, which I tried to take to heart for this chapter, but not one bashing the plot or pairings of my story.**

**Sorry for the rant… on to the shoutouts!**

**Shoutouts to:**

**StickyFingaz, Kyle Preston Ross, Guest, MoonlightDetectiveEdogwaIrene, Thunderwolf7226 for Reviewing**

**AnarkhosRead, PercyyyJackson, ShiningQuasar01,perksofbeingajackson, 3WaltBuizel, and Take me back for Following**

**PercyyyJackson, Broken Requiem, 3WaltBuizel, and Tiffmo for Favoriting**

**Asmodeus Stahl**


	5. The Staff of Serapis Part 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

Hey everybody, Carter here. Where did Annabeth leave off again?

[As you very well know Carter, I left off after you captured the Labrador head]

Right, right. Annabeth and I left the wreckage of the train with not a moment to spare, within minutes cops, the fire department, and just about every emergency personal member in New York City showed up. Just as we left eyesight from the wreck, I could see a couple of vehicles emblazoned with big yellow letters that read "NTSB" pull up at the scene of the derailment. Annabeth also pointed out that people were watching the scene from nearby apartment buildings.

Annabeth was being a real trooper helping me drag the dog creature by its tail into the sand dunes. It was nice to see her again, although I'd rather _not _have seen her under these circumstances.

How do I know Annabeth? Well, let's be real here, it's kinda hard not to know your sister's boyfriend's closest friend, even if she's his ex. To be completely honest, I wasn't exactly keen to meet my little sis's new boyfriend's ex, but Annabeth grew on me. She's the only one I know aside from Amos that I can have a truly intellectual conversation with. Percy and Sadie are, well, not as interested in that. The trainees are busy as heck with school and learning magic, and when I'm with Zia… let's just say that we do other things than have intellectual conversations.

[You say one more thing about our relationship status, and I _will_ burn your bits off]

[*glups* Sorry Zia]

Back to the story then. Knowing that this was a monster, I decided to drag it over every little shard of glass and bottles and rock as Annabeth and I dragged it into the sand dunes. It was quite pleasant actually…

It wasn't easy dragging the monster though. Its red aura seemed to be growing brighter and brighter as the gold aura from the twine seemed to be growing dimmer and dimmer.

Its magic was so powerful that both Annabeth and I wanted to puke. We, of course, had the dignity not to, but we wanted to nonetheless.

It didn't help that Rockaway Beach looked like a complete dump. Hurricane Bill had blown through it a little over a year ago and the mortals hadn't done much to clean up after it. Some of the apartment buildings had been reduced to complete shells, with their boarded-up windows and cinder-block walls covered in graffiti. There used to be a pier that allowed people to walk out over the ocean, but was now just pylons jutting out of the ocean, whose waves swirled angrily as if to say '_Don't ignore me. I can always come back and finish the job_.'

We kept walking for a few more minutes until we reached an old, derelict ice cream truck that the hurricane had sunk halfway into the dunes. The pictures of the treats that had once been sold from this truck had faded considerably but were still visible on the truck's side.

Almost as soon as we could make out what the pictures were, Annabeth clutched her stomach and muttered softly, "Gotta stop."

She dropped the dog where it was and staggered over the truck before slumping down against the passenger's side door. It was obvious to me that she was exhausted and wasn't feeling well.

Healing magic wasn't my thing, that was always something that I had delegated to Jaz back at Brooklyn House, but I knew Annabeth wouldn't last long without some kind of energy booster.

It was at that moment that I remembered that before I had left Brooklyn House that morning, Jaz had pressed one of her healing potions into my hands and said, "Knowing you, you're going to get yourself into trouble, so take this. You're likely going to need it and Sadie will kill both of us if you come back injured. And that's not to mention what Zia will do to you if you hurt yourself"

I wasn't that hurt, so I figured I might as well give the potion to Annabeth. Anything, and I mean _anything_ is better than facing an angry Percy. Honestly, I'd rather face Zia trying to burn my bits off for saying stupid than an angry Percy, and getting my bits burned off by Zia is _not_ something that I want to happen at any point in my life.

[I'm not _that _scary Carter!]

[Sorry Percy, you kinda are]

[Sorry Percy]

[Really guys, you too?]

[Yes]

[Unless you want me to start over, I kindly suggest you stop talking]

Right then, sorry about that. I suppose that's what I get for letting my girlfriend along with my sister and her boyfriend be in the same room as me when I'm recording…

Where was I again?

[For Ra's sake Carter, you can be so forgetful at times…]

[I'm kidding Zia, jeez…]

After remembering the potion Jaz gave me, I closed my eyes and concentrated for a few seconds before reaching my arm out into the Duat and grabbing the vial.

I then moved over to where Annabeth was and sat down cross-legged beside her and handed the potion to her. I told her, "Drink it. You'll feel better when you do. Jaz makes the best healing potions."

She turned and looked at me for a few seconds before saying, "I'm not so sure that's a good idea, Carter. I don't doubt Jaz's abilities, but I'm not a magician like the rest of you guys. There's no guarantee it will work on me. Heck, for all we know, mixing Egyptian and Greek magic could kill me. I'm not sure I want to take that chance."

I shrugged but didn't take the potion back. I figured she would eventually take it considering that she seemed to be getting worse by the second.

As it turned out, I was right -

[*snort* For the first time in your life]

[_Shut up_ Sadie, I'm _trying _to tell the story. You weren't even there. Go back to making out with Percy or something]

Ah… little sisters… so annoying at times…

Anyway, back to the story. A few minutes after she refused to take the potion, she clenched her forehead in obvious pain before uncorking the vial and chugging the contents.

Almost immediately, Annabeth shot up from her slumped position against the truck. She said, "Wow, I feel great!"

I smiled in response at her and said, "Thought so, Jaz makes the best healing potions. Ra knows how many times she saved my and Sadie's rear ends with them."

Annabeth laughed at that and then said, "Learn anything new recently?"

I rolled my eyes at her and said, "When haven't I? Have you?"

Annabeth responded with a look that had '_Of course I did, idiot_' written all over it.

I chuckled at that before saying, "Well, I recently started watching this mortal television show called Survivor…"

Annabeth laughed for a second and then said, "Percy and his mom got me hooked on that when I was dating him. We watched most of Season 18, Survivor: Tocantins, together before Hera kidnapped him. While he was gone, Paul, Sally and I kept up watching the show. I think we made it through Season 20, Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, before the Argo II left for New Rome, and later Greece. I haven't watched it since my break up with Percy, but isn't there a season on right now?"

I smiled in response, and said, "Yeah. Season 21, Survivor: Nicaragua."

"What's it like?"

"A lot less interesting than Heroes vs. Villains, I'll tell you that much."

Annabeth and I sat there talking about Survivor for another half-hour or so before the conversation turned back towards the hogtied dog head sitting next to us.

Annabeth asked, "So what all do you know about the dog?"

"Well, one minute it was a statue sitting in our library, the next it was fully alive and on the run."

Annabeth contemplated that for a moment before saying, "Okay, so it's part of a statue. And I'm guessing that the other monster is the other half of it."

Before I could respond, she added, "But what statue could it be? I can't think of any 3-headed statues with animal heads that aren't of Cerberus, and this _definitely_ isn't Cerberus."

I sighed and said, "That's the question out librarian, Cleo, was researching when the dog made a run for it."

"Okay, if the two monsters are connected, it's a statue three-headed beast. If it weren't from the shell, I'd say it was a statue of a Chimera."

I then commented, "Are you sure it's a shell? It kind of looks like a torch to me…"

Annabeth immediately went ramrod straight and said, "I think I figured it out. It's not a torch or a shell, but rather a scepter. I don't remember which god held it, but I'm pretty sure he was Greek, but I think he was from somewhere in Egypt…"

"Alexandria," I replied. "I've been to Alexandria. I recall something about it being the capital city when it was ruled by the Greeks. Alexander the Great, right?"

"Yeah, exactly. Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, and after he died, his General, Ptolemy, took over. He wanted the Egyptians to accept him as Pharoah, so he mashed the Greek and Egyptian Gods together to create new ones."

I shuddered at that and said, "I prefer my gods whole. I don't need an image of my dad and Hades smashed together into one deity."

Annabeth rolled her eyes and said, "Tell me about it. Anyway, there was one god in particular… I can't remember his name. The three-headed creature was at the top of the scepter…"

"Are you sure? I'm not doubting you, but that would be a massive scepter. I don't think I want to meet the owner of it…"

Annabeth immediately sobered up at that comment. "Oh, gods… That's it! The scepter is trying to reassemble itself and find its master."

I paled at the thought of that and said, "That's something we cannot, under any circumstances, let happen."

Before Annabeth could respond, the monster howled and the ropes that I'd bound it with blew up like a grenade, spraying shrapnel everywhere.

The resulting blast Annabeth into the ice cream truck, probably knocking her unconscious from what I could tell. I, myself was blown across the dunes like a tumbleweed before slamming into a chain-link fence and collapsing. The last thought on my mind before I slipped into blissful unconsciousness was, "Oh fuck. It's free."

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of the Staff of Serapis. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**My heart goes out to everyone affected by this global pandemic. I hope you all are safe and sound inside your house reading this.**

**Unfortunately, the pandemic has made life even busier for me, so my update schedule is likely going to be slower than normal. It definitely **_**won't**_** be another 2 months before I update again. Sorry about that, by the way…**

**I am now taking feedback on my stories on Discord. If you want to chat with me on Discord, my username is Son of Athena#9712.**

**A Note on Survivor: Survivor is a real show that still airs to this day on Wednesdays at 8 central on CBS. It is currently in its 20th anniversary season, season 40, Survivor: Winners at War, which brings back 20 former winners to compete again. The seasons mentioned in the chapter are accurate to the timeframe of this story according to the official Survivor and Riordan Wikis. **

**Now, to answer some of the reviews:**

**Starkeeper-the-Storyteller (From December): Here is some of that nerding out you wanted to see. I wanted to add more, but I felt that it would unnecessarily add length to the story and take away from the plot. If enough people want, I would be willing to write a bonus chapter or side-one-shot consisting of Carter and Annabeth nerding out over things.**

**BabyYoda: Percy is not cheating on Annabeth. It was mentioned at the start of Percy's POV in Chapter 3 that they amicably broke up after the events of Blood of Olympus, due to the trauma of their time in Tartarus.**

**ZoeNightShadow: I can understand where you're coming from with this, but it feels like you're giving Percy too little credit. Personally, I feel like he likely knows what a tangent is, if not from school, then from Annabeth while they were dating.**

**Guest: Glad to hear you like the idea of the Percy x Sadie. I do understand that Percy is 4 years older than Sadie, and I can understand your reservations about that. However, it's not like they're going to be doing much more than kissing at this point in time. Also, let's be real here, it's not heard of for a relationship with that age gap to happen. Annabeth had a crush on Luke, and if not for the Great Prophecy, I think they might conceivably have gotten together in canon, despite Luke being 5 years older than her.**

**Shoutouts to:**

**Just a fan of fics, Berix, BabyYoda, ZoeNightShadow, ScarletAvenger, and Guest for Reviewing**

**thevadergamergirl, Berix, Unknown Outlaw, EAR7H, Sparky0018, ZoeNightShadow, ScarletAvenger, Lunartic25, IDontGetIt1596, the sous, Kryptonian Lightning, and advanced dragon for Following**

**thevadergamergirl, iHateFridays, Lunartic25, IDontGetIt1596, hosheatiang2000, the sous, Kryptonian Lightning, and advanced dragon for Favoriting**

**Berix, Shadowhuntress11235, Daughter Of Athena, ThatSadisticBookWorm, Larry, and Lunartic25 for Providing Feedback via Discord**

**Asmodeus Stahl**


	6. The Staff of Serapis Part 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

**Annabeth POV:**

Of course, Carter ends his part with an explosion. Boys, am I right?

Fortunately, I was not knocked unconscious as Carter thought. All of the air was merely forced out of my lungs and my limbs felt like they had turned to lead. That still isn't great, but at least I knew what was going on around me.

What was really odd is that the two-headed monster could have easily killed me if it wanted to.

Instead of killing me, it bounded inland, disappearing into the tall weeds.

I instinctively reached out for a weapon. As my fingers closed around Carter's _khopesh_, I heard groaning from the nearby sand dunes where Carter had blown off to like a tumbleweed.

I immediately yelled out, "Carter, are you okay?!"

As I ran towards him, I could hear him mumble something under his breath. Probably a thank you to the Egyptian Gods for him still being alive.

By the time I reached him, he was sitting up, spitting sand out of his mouth. How he managed to talk with sand in his mouth, I have no clue. Maybe it's an Egyptian thing, kind of like how Percy can speak underwater. Carter had bits of seaweed strewn throughout his hair, and somehow looked more pissed than injured.

When I got to him, he was angrily saying, "Stupid mutt. I should've known that magical twine wouldn't hold him. I really need to learn how to conjure the Seven Ribbons of Hathor. Even if I did know how to conjure them, I still don't even know if they'd work on Fido considering that he's not a fully Egyptian monster. Gods damn it!"

Needing to get Carter's attention, and knowing that he wasn't likely to stop ranting any time soon, I decided to slap him across the face. It always seemed to work with Percy, so I figured it would work with another guy going on a similar rant.

As I suspected it worked. He immediately stopped ranting, clutched the cheek where I slapped him, and just glared at me.

I shrugged and said, "We need to find Fido, as you so eloquently named him, and we're not going to be able to do that if you're ranting."

He looked like he wanted to argue, but then his gaze shifted to my right hand, where I still had Carter's _khopesh_ clasped tightly within my fingers. He then said, "Thanks for bringing that over to me."

I mutely nodded and handed him his sword. I then said, "You wouldn't happen to have another weapon on you that I could use, would you? I'd rather _not_ be dead weight when we catch up to Fido."

Carter frowned and said, "No, I wish I did."

Before I could say anything, he added, "I might be able to get you one though. I have an idea, and I'm not sure if it's going to work."

He then stretched out his left hand, which promptly disappeared, which I had to assume meant he was reaching into the Duat. When his hand reappeared, it was holding onto an ivory boomerang that I knew to be a wand.

I frowned and asked, "I'm not a magician, how am I supposed to use the wand?"

Carter's face shifted into a neutral expression as he said, "Well, this is where my idea might fail. You seem to have had no side effects with using the potion I gave you, which was, at its core, Egyptian magic. Based on that alone, you might be able to wield the wand. I don't know as many spells as Sadie does, but many of the ones I do are combat-oriented."

He then extended his arm with the wand out towards me and said, "Here, grab onto the wand. Let's see if my theory is correct."

Seeing no better option, I grabbed onto the wand, and after a few seconds, Carter dropped his hand from the other end.

He then opened his mouth, presumably to teach me some magic, but before he could speak, I gasped in pain, the ivory burning like dry ice. I tried to let go of the wand, but my hands wouldn't budge. As Carter and I watched, the wand began to steam and change form, until I held in my hinds a replica of the Celestial Bronze knife I had been given by Luke as a child.

We both looked at the wand-turned-knife in amazement for a few seconds, each for a different reason, before Carter said, "Well, that's not what I expected, but I assume that's a good thing?"

I nodded and said softly, "I used to wield a knife identical to this from when I was seven years old to when I fell into Tartarus with Percy. It was given to me by one of the first two demigods I ever met, Luke Castellan, a son of Hermes. He got it from an old son of Apollo named Halcyon Green, who he and the demigod he was traveling with, Thalia Grace, a daughter of Zeus, who now leads the hunters of Artemis, met on their way to camp. Hal, as Luke told me he preferred to be called, was given it by a young girl he saved from an accident by telling her the future. Before I found Luke and Thalia, I was using a hammer as a weapon, so this knife was the first real weapon I ever had."

Carter then said, "It sounds like you have a long history with this knife. If I may ask, you mentioned what happened to Thalia, but what happened to Luke? I know I've heard Percy mention his name once or twice, but I can't place in reference to what."

I sighed and said, "Luke ended up betraying the gods and became Kronos' host in an attempt to take revenge for his father, Hermes, abandoning him with his mother, who went a bit crazy after a failed attempt to host the spirit Oracle of Delphi. Luke ended up redeeming himself, killing Kronos, and himself at the same time, with this very knife at the final battle on Olympus, preventing Kronos' from ascending to his true form, which would likely have made him unstoppable."

Carter nodded mutely as I spoke and said, "I'm sorry about Luke. I can tell he really meant a lot to you."

I then said, "Thank you. Now then, let's go find Fido."

Carter then asked, "Did you see which direction he went?"

I nodded, pointed my new knife in the direction of the tall weeds that Fido had disappeared to, and said, "That way."

When Carter turned to look in the direction I was pointing, his eyes widened. He then said, "Ah, towards the storm. That's new… I know it wasn't there before."

I looked quizically at him, and said, "What storm? I don't see any storm… Let me guess, Egyptian Magic?"

"Figures you don't see it. That's probably the case then. I have something that might allow you to see it. I'm not sure you're going to like it though…"

I shrugged and said, "We need to get to Fido before he reaches his master, and we can't do that if you're seeing things that I'm not. This isn't a time for me to refuse something because I don't like it."

As soon as I finished speaking, Carter reached his hand out into the Duat again and retrieved yet another ceramic vial. This one, unlike the healing potion, was stubby and wide and looked somewhat like a face cream jar. He pulled the lid off, scooped out some pink goo, and then said, "I need to smear this on your eyelids. You should be able to see the storm once I smear this on your eyelids."

Naturally, I was worried about his Egyptian Magic and my demigod-ness interacting poorly, but seeing as I had no other choice, I closed my eyes and let Carter smear the goo over them, which tingled a bit and warmed like methanol rub.

He then said, "Go ahead and open your eyes now. You should be able to see the storm."

Sure as Hades, when I opened my eyes, I gasped in amazement. The world was awash in color. The ground had turned translucent with gelatinous layers descending into darkness below. The air rippled with shimmering veils, each one vibrant but slightly out of sync as if multiple high-definition videos had been superimposed on top of one another. Hieroglyphs and

Greek letters swirled around me, fusing and bursting as they collided. I felt as if I were seeing the world on the atomic level. Everything invisible had been revealed, painted with magic light.

I turned to Carter and asked, "Do you see like this all the time?"

He laughed and said, "No, that would drive me, and everyone else I know crazy. I have to concentrate to see into the Duat. That's what you're doing, actually, seeing into the magical world."

I wanted to say something, but I couldn't. I was usually a confident person. Whenever I dealt with regular mortals, I carried a smug certainty that I possessed secret knowledge. I understood the world of gods and monsters. Mortals didn't have a clue. Even with other demigods, I was almost always the most seasoned veteran. I mean, I'd done more than most heroes had ever dreamed of, and I'd survived. Now, looking at the shifting curtains of colors, I felt like a six-year-old kid again, just learning how terrible and dangerous my world really was.

At that thought, I sat down in the sand and said, "I don't know what to think. Gods, I haven't felt this way since I was six and first found out that I was a demigod."

Carter smiled kindly and said, "Don't think. Breathe. Your eyes will adjust. It's like swimming. If you let your body take over, you'll know what to do instinctively. Panic, and you'll drown."

I snorted a bit at that last remark, considering I hadn't been swimming without Percy in almost forever. And with Percy, it was literally impossible to drown. Nevertheless, I did as Carter said, and tried to relax.

I began to discern patterns in the air: currents flowing between the layers of reality, vapor trails of magic streaming off cars, and buildings. The site of the train wreck glowed green. Carter had a golden aura with misty plumes in front of him forming the shapes of a crook and flail, the symbols of a Pharoah.

Where the dog monster once lay, the ground smoldered like live coals. Crimson tendrils snaked away from the site, following the direction in which the monster had fled.

I focused on the derelict apartment building in the distance, and my heartbeat doubled. The tower glowed red from the inside, with light seeping through the boarded-up windows, shooting through cracks in the crumbling walls. Dark clouds swirled overhead, and more tendrils of red energy flowed towards the building from all over the landscape as if being drawn into the vortex.

The scene reminded me of Charybdis, the whirlpool-inhaling monster that I'd encountered in the Sea of Monsters with Percy, Grover, Tyson, Clarisse, and the undead soldiers gifted to her by her father. It wasn't a happy memory.

I then said to Carter, "That apartment building over there is attracting red light from all over the place."

Carter smiled like a triumphant teacher who had just taught their very first lesson and said, "Exactly. In Egyptian magic, red represents evil. Which can only mean one thing in this case -"

Before Carter could finish, I interjected, "That's where the dog monster is heading, to merge with the other piece of the scepter and to find its master."

I knew I should get up. We had to hurry. But, looking at the swirling layers of magic, I was afraid to move. I'd spent my whole life learning about the Mist, but I'd never thought of the Mist as an actual curtain.

I wondered if the Mist and the Duat were related, or maybe even the same thing. The number of veils I could see was overwhelming. It was like a tapestry folded in on itself a hundred times.

I didn't trust herself to stand. Panic, and you'll drown, Carter had said. I was already panicking and didn't want to drown.

Carter offered me his hand, his eyes full of sympathy. He said, "Look, I know it's a lot, but nothing has changed. You're still the demigod you've always been. And now you have your old dagger back to boot. You can do this."

I felt the blood rising to my face since normally I would've been the one giving the pep talk.

I shook that feeling off, and as I grabbed Carter's hand, I said, "You're right. Let's go find ourselves a god."

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of the Staff of Serapis. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**I know this a long Author's note, but you're going to want to read it all, trust me.**

**I realize that there wasn't much action in this chapter (again), but such is the case with the Staff of Serapis. This part of the original trilogy of short stories focuses heavily on Annabeth adapting to the knowledge of the Egyptian world. That's the purpose that this chapter serves. Even though Annabeth knows of the Egyptian world, there's a lot she doesn't know, which she comes to terms with here.**

**The next chapter will contain the build-up to the final fight with Serapis. I'd like for that fight to take up an entire chapter or two in it of itself. Chapter 8 should see the return of some action.**

**For those of you that want to see a specific interaction between the characters in this story or see a certain scene explored in more detail, I have news for you. I am going to create a side story full of one-shots that take place within this series. **

**The first chapter will go up concurrently with Chapter 7 of this story and will be something that I've wanted to write since I first started writing this story. This moment is Sadie's first visit to Camp Half-Blood. **

**Why this scene? Well, if you'll recall from **_**The Serpent's Shadow, **_**Sadie attends a specialty school called the Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted. At the dance, we see the first interaction between characters from two different series in the Riordanverse when Sadie introduces Carter to Lacy, a member of the Aphrodite Cabin, who looks up to Sadie. Sadie then runs into everybody's least favorite daughter of Aphrodite, Drew Tanaka. The pair mutually loathe each other. **

**This one-shot will essentially be Sadie reacting to all things Greek, with a heavy emphasis on Drew and Lacy's presence at Camp. **

**If you want to request something for that story, leave a review or PM me! I'd love to hear your ideas.**

**I have also updated my profile with a lot of new information, I highly suggest you go check it out!**

**My heart goes out to everyone affected by this global pandemic. I hope you all are safe and sound inside your house reading this.**

**Conversely to my last message, I have decided to start writing for an hour a day.**

**I am now taking feedback on my stories on Discord. If you want to chat with me on Discord, my username is Son of Athena#9712.**

**Now, to answer some of the reviews:**

**Starkeeper-the-Storyteller: I really enjoy Staff of Serapis as well. The companion story will definitely include some more of Carter and Annabeth nerding out that you requested back in December. About what, I don't know, but I'll figure it out! It'll likely involve my interests, as I did in the last chapter with Survivor, as is I'm the writer, and the interests that they share are not necessarily defined, with the exception of History, which I also happen to enjoy.**

**iHateFridays: That it was. I figured that that'd be a good place to end that chapter. The first line in this chapter was actually a nod to your review. Hope you enjoyed!**

**Shoutouts to:**

**Starkeeper-the-Storyteller, and iHateFridays for Reviewing**

**Ethandaves, PerzoePeranca, damasen14-20-22, YgoFoxFire, , and Mindbreaker101 for Following (There are 69 of y'all now, lol)**

**tiger2567tre, damasen14-20-22, Arianna Le Fay, YgoFoxFire, , and syndicate1523 for Favoriting**

**Bannanaboo2poo, and Mike1789 for Providing Feedback via Discord**

**Asmodeus Stahl**


	7. The Staff of Serapis Part 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

Okay, this time I'm _not_ going to pretend to not know where we are in the story. Zia was rather clear about what she would do to my anatomy if I pretended to (or Gods forbid, _actually_) forget where we are in the story. Seriously, Zia's great and all, but she's downright _scary_ sometimes.

Anyway, Annabeth and I squeezed our way through a gap in the chain-link fence surrounding the apartment building that was emanating evil magic in all directions and picked our way through a field of spear grass and concrete.

As we got closer to the building, the red glow in the windows became more and more radiant. The plywood rattled. The brick walls groaned. Hieroglyphic birds and stick figures formed in the air and floated inside. Even the graffiti seemed to vibrate on the walls as if the symbols were trying to come alive. It was somewhat reminiscent of how the Dallas Museum of Art before Apophis trashed it destroying the last copy of Setne's edited version of The Book of Overcoming Apophis.

The god inside the building's power was tugging on me, somewhat like Fido, as I so eloquently named him, did when Annabeth and I were dragging him along as captive.

As we neared the building, I heard Annabeth mutter to herself, "Wish I knew what we were dealing with. I like to do research first - arm myself with knowledge."

I smiled at that and said, "You and me both. Personally, I'd love to just curl up in Brooklyn House's Library and read up on reading up on every hostile demon Sadie and I might face, highlighting the important bits and making flashcards for the pair of us to study. Sadly, when demons attack, they don't give us any warning, and they rarely bother to identify themselves. It's the same thing here. As Sadie once put it, 'how often do monsters give you the luxury of Googling them before they attack?'"

Annabeth chuckled quietly at that, and said, "Never. I wish they did, though."

Now it was my turn to quietly laugh. Before I could say anything else, Annabeth then asked, "So, knowing nothing about what we're facing. What's your gameplan?"

I replied, "To be honest, I don't know. Sadie would probably give you an answer like 'Forge ahead and blast enemies into teeny-tiny bits.' That's not how I roll though. I tend to play to my strengths. Whether that's turning into a hawk, summoning my combat avatar, or something completely different. I just do what I can with the knowledge I know and the skills I have."

Annabeth snorted at the first part of my response and said, "No wonder Sadie fits in so well with Percy and the others. They all think the same way - kill, kill, kill. To be honest, I think you're the only person I've met that knows about monsters and is not one of my half-siblings that thinks the same way as I do. Most demigods tend to recklessly charge into things and make a mess out of them. I can't even count how many times Percy has done that and later regretted it. I swear, most of these demigods would be sorted into Gryffindor if they went to Hogwarts."

I laughed at that, knowing that the same was true with Sadie, Zia, and many of the other magicians I knew.

As we reached the building I asked Annabeth, "Do you think this door is where we ought to go in?"

The door in question was slightly ajar with a two-by-four nailed across a doorway in a half-hearted attempt to keep trespassers out.

To be completely honest, I wanted to scout the perimeter, check for demons and other monsters, and things like that. But, I knew we had no time to spend, so I slipped through the doorway and started down the steps, _khopesh _drawn, with Annabeth following close behind.

As it turns out, it was probably a good thing we didn't look for any other doors. The whole interior of the building was a cavernous shell, thirty stories tall, swirling with a maelstrom of bricks, pipes, boards, and other debris, along with glowing Greek symbols, hieroglyphs, and red neon tufts of energy. The scene was both terrifying and beautiful - as if a tornado had been caught, illuminated from within, and put on permanent display.

Not going to lie, if we weren't about to battle a god, I could've stayed there for hours simply studying the scene. That's how beautiful it was, in my opinion.

[What are your criteria for beautiful? I'm not sure I like being placed in the same category as a thirty-story tall maelstrom produced by a god]

[Don't worry Zia, beautiful people are in a whole different category than anything else I find beautiful]

As I was saying, because we'd entered on the basement level, we were protected in a shallow stairwell - a kind of trench in the concrete. If we'd walked into the storm on the ground level, they would've been ripped to shreds. Thank Ra we decided to go through that door, am I right?

As Annabeth and I watched, a twisted steel girder flew overhead at race-car speed. Dozens of bricks sped by like a school of fish. A fiery red hieroglyph slammed into a flying sheet of plywood, and the wood ignited like tissue paper.

It was scary to think about what might've happened if we'd walked through another door. As much as I'd love to see mom and dad again, I'd rather it not be because I got killed and was now a permanent resident of the Duat. Not that Sadie would mind, that is. She'd probably be happy to have me out of Brooklyn House so that she and Percy could -"

[CARTER JULIUS KANE, I SWEAR TO RA IF YOU FINISH THAT SENTENCE…]

[What? It's true, is it not?]

[CARTER, YOU LITTLE SHIT, GET OVER HERE! ONCE I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, ZIA'S THREATS WILL SEEM LIKE COMPLIMENTS!]

[Okay, okay, I surrender. Jeez, Sadie, you don't have to take a joke so personally]

[YOU CALL THAT A -]

[Come on Sadie, calm down. Your brother is just being a moron, as usual. Oh, Carter? If you imply that Sadie and I are doing _that_ again, you'll be wishing that it was Sadie andZia threatening you instead of me]

[Sorry Percy. Won't happen again. I promise]

Sorry about that. The one time I try and crack a joke, everyone loses it. Got it. I'll keep that in mind. No more jokes about Percy and Sadie.

Barring any further interruptions, I'll continue the story.

As we watched the now-flaming sheet of plywood soar by, I noticed a crumbling ledge of the thirtieth story jutting out over the void. I could just barely make out a bulky humanoid

shape standing at the precipice, his arms spread as if welcoming the storm.

I turned to Annabeth, who also appeared to have noticed the figure, and asked, "What do you think he's up to?"

Annabeth flinched as a helix of copper pipes spun a few inches over her head. She stared into the debris for a bit and then said, "When I look at the ledge, I notice patterns like I did with the Duat: a swirl of boards and nails coming together to form a platform frame, a cluster of bricks assembling like Lego to make an arch. To me, it looks like he's building something."

I had to squint a bit before I could see what Annabeth saw. Once I saw it, I asked her, "What is he building, though? I can't make heads or tails out of it. It reminds me of the Realm of Chaos, which is _not_ a pleasant memory to recall."

Annabeth responded, "The storm isn't completely random. Bits of material are coming together, forming some kind of structure inside the building. He's cannibalizing the building. I don't know how long the outer walls will last."

I swore softly at that comment and muttered under my breath, He better not be building a pyramid. If he is, I swear to Ra…"

Annabeth looked at me quizically for a few seconds, as if she was surprised about my hatred of pyramids, but quickly shook it off, and said, "I'd guess it's some kind of conical tower. There's only one way to know for sure, though."

"Ask the builder, yeah. As much as I want to know, I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"Do we really have a choice, though?"

At that, we stood there in silence for a few moments, still looking at the man on the ledge. He hadn't moved, yet he seemed larger than he was when we first noticed him. Red light swirled around him. In silhouette, he looked like he was wearing a tall angular top hat _à la_ Abe Lincoln.

I then said, "So, if that's out mystery god, where's the -"

Right then, as if on cue, a three-part howl cut through the din. At the opposite end of the building from us, a set of metal doors burst open and the crab monster came loping in.

Unfortunately for us, the beast now had all three heads - wolf, lion, and dog. Its long spiral shell glowed with Greek and hieroglyphic inscriptions. Completely ignoring the flying debris, the monster clambered inside on its six forelegs, then leaped into the air. The storm carried it upward, spiraling through the chaos.

Next to me, Annabeth swore softly and then said, "It's heading for his master. We have to stop it."

I had already thought of a plan of how to get to the god, but it was risky considering it involved divine words, which I wasn't really that great at. I grimly thought to myself, '_It's either this or a permanent residency in the Duat for me, and a permanent residency in Elysium for Annabeth_.'

I turned to Annabeth and said, "I have a plan, although I'm not sure how well it will work."

"What are you going to do?"

Instead of responding, I focused on the Duat and pulled my staff out of it. I wasn't that good with divine words, that was more of Sadie's thing, but I had to do something. I silently prayed to Horus for help and then uttered, "_N'dah._"

Once I uttered the divine word, a sphere of magical light surrounded us. Almost as soon as the bubble went up, Annabeth asked, "Is this going to shield us from the storm?"

I looked at her, my face beaded with sweat, and said, "Hopefully. Come on, let's go."

I then led the way up the stairs, immediately putting the shield to the test. A flying kitchen counter would have decapitated us, but it shattered against my force field. Chunks of marble swirled harmlessly around us.

I then said, "Okay. You need to hold the staff while I turn into a hawk."

Annabeth did a double-take at that, and said, "Wait. _What?_"

Unlike Sadie, who I'm sure would roll her eyes at that comment, I responded, "It's part of my plan. I'll fly up there and stop the staff monster. You try and distract the god, whose name I still can't figure out. Get his attention."

Annabeth then said, "Fine, but I'm not a magician. How am I supposed to maintain the spell?"

I then said, "The shield should hold for a few minutes, as long as you use the staff."

I could hear Annabeth mutter something under her breath that sounded something like, "Keyword 'should,'" before she asked me in a louder voice, "But what about you? If you're not in the shield -"

"I have an idea that I'm pretty sure it's going to work," I interjected.

I then started to transform into a hawk. Unlike Sadie, I had no need for any statues or talisman to help me transform, so I was in the air in only a few seconds.

As I flew towards the staff, I prayed to Ra that my plan would work and that my stupidity wouldn't earn me permanent residency in the Duat and Annabeth permanent residency in Elysium. As nice it would be to see my parents again, they would not be happy with me going to the Duat permanently at my age.

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of the Staff of Serapis. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**I know this is a long author's note, but I have a lot to cover, so bear with me, please.**

**This has been the hardest chapter for me to write so far because, in the Staff of Serapis, the beginning of this section was all about the building in the Duat and Annabeth's view of it, so on and so forth. For this, I didn't want to repeat a POV twice in a row (call me crazy, but I'm going to do my damndest not to), which meant writing this from Carter's perspective. That, let me tell you, was a challenge in it of itself.**

**I stopped the chapter where I did because a lot of the next chunk of the story was about Annabeth distracting Serapis, something that I couldn't exactly tell in Carter's POV. We'll see that next chapter though, and will hopefully also have the final battle or at least part of it. **

**Please let me know whether Sadie blowing up at Carter was too much. I was about 50/50 on including it, so I would love to hear your guys' thoughts on it.**

**There were a few references to the original version of this section of the story. Special Prize (that I will not disclose at this moment) goes to the first person who finds them all. You can PM me with your guesses or leave them in a review, it's up to you.**

**The first of the companion one-shots has been published! Go check it out!**

**I have updated my profile with a lot of new information, I highly suggest you go check it out!**

**My heart goes out to everyone affected by this global pandemic. I hope you all are safe and sound inside your house reading this.**

**I am now taking feedback on my stories on Discord. If you want to chat with me on Discord, my username is Son of Athena#9712.**

**Special Thanks to Discord User TeeEffEm, who pointed out to me that I had accidentally swapped the 'a' and the 'i' in Egyptian in the title. That was a mortifying error on my part, so thank you for catching that!**

**Now, to answer some of the reviews:**

**Starkeeper-the-Storyteller: Thanks for letting me know. I fixed the problem. The original is in 3rd person, so my guess is that's why I slipped into it. I'll do my best to make sure that doesn't happen again!**

**Guest (AKA ColorfulAxe): Glad you like it! Let me know your thoughts on Lord and Lady Lupus once you finish it. Personally, I think this story is much better written, but that's just me. I most definitely will be finishing this story. I don't plan on quitting any time soon, that's just not who I am.**

**iHateFridays: Glad to hear you enjoyed the chapter! The Carter/Annabeth dynamic is one that I find really interesting to explore since they are very much alike in many ways. You are very welcome for the nod. As soon as I read your review last time, I thought to myself, 'What a great way to start off the chapter before getting into the story.'**

**Shoutouts to:**

**Starkeeper-the-Storyteller, Guest (AKA ColorfulAxe), and iHateFridays for Reviewing**

**HadrianGalahad, Owieeey, relyks1333, InfernoRiver, ChaosMarie, and dhodges507 for Following **

**HadrianGalahad, relyks1333, and dhodges507 for Favoriting**

**Nosebleed, and TeeEffEm for Providing Feedback via Discord**

**Asmodeus Stahl**


	8. The Staff of Serapis Part 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

**I have created a Discord server. The code is hfKwz9k. The link is also in my profile. I hope to see you all there!**

* * *

**Annabeth POV:**

I looked on in astonishment as Carter transformed into a hawk. I'd seen people transform into animals before, yes, but it never got easier to watch.

It didn't take long before I winced. A cluster of bricks plowed into Carter, which, by all means, should have turned him into a feather puree. Yet, the bricks went straight through him as if he wasn't there, his form shimmering as if he were traveling under a deep layer of water.

I soon realized that he was flying in the Duat - flying in a different layer of reality.

Thoughts and ideas began racing through my mind at that point. If a demigod could learn to pass through walls like that, run straight through monsters…

I soon shelved the thought for later, knowing that I needed to move. I charged up the steps and into the maelstrom. Metal bars and copper pipes clanged against my forcefield. The golden sphere flashed a little more dimly each time it reflected debris.

I raised Carter's staff in one hand and my new dagger in the other. In the

magical torrent, the Celestial bronze blade guttered like a dying torch.

"Hey!" I yelled at ledge far above. "Mr. God Person!"

No response. My voice probably couldn't carry over the storm.

The shell of the building started to groan. Mortar trickled from the walls and

swirled into the mix like cotton candy tufts.

Carter the hawk was still alive, flying towards the three-headed monster as it spiraled upward. The beast was about halfway to the top now, flailing its legs and glowing ever more brightly, as if soaking up the power of the tornado.

I was running out of time.

I reached into my memory, sifting through old myths, the most obscure tales Chiron had ever told me at camp. When I was younger, Id been like a sponge, soaking up every fact and name.

The three-headed staff. The god of Alexandria, Egypt.

The god's name came tome. At least, I'd hoped I was right.

One of the first lessons I'd learned as a demigod: _Names have power_. You

never said the name of a god or monster unless you were prepared to draw its

attention.

I took a deep breath, and then shouted at the top of my lungs: "SERAPIS!"

The storm slowed. Huge sections of pipe hovered in midair. Clouds of bricks

and timber froze and hung suspended.

Becalmed in the middle of the tornado, the three-headed monster tried to stand. Carter swooped overhead, opened his talons, and raked them across the creature's face, causing the staff monster to shriek in pain, and spiral towards the ground.

From the thirtieth-floor ledge, a man's voice boomed: "WHO DARES INTERRUPT MY TRIUMPHAL RISE?"

"I do!" I yelled back. "Come down and face me!"

I wanted to keep the god focused on me so Carter could do ... whatever the Hades Carter decided to do. I knew from the few times that I had met him that he never approached anything without a plan, so he clearly had some good tricks up his sleeve.

The god, Serapis, leaped from his ledge. He plummeted thirty stories and landed on his feet in the middle of the ground floor, an easy dagger throw away from me.

Not that I was tempted to attack, that is.

Serapis stood fifteen feet tall. He wore only a pair of swimming trunks in a Hawaiian floral pattern. His body rippled with muscles. His bronze skin was covered in shimmering tattoos of hieroglyphs, Greek letters, and other languages I didn't recognize.

His face was framed with long, nappy hair like Rastafarian dreadlocks. A curly Greek beard grew down to his collarbone. His eyes were sea green - so much like Percy's that I got goosebumps.

His headgear, however, ruined the look. What I had taken for a stovepipe hat was actually a cylindrical wicker basket embroidered with images of pansies.

"Excuse me," I said. "Is that a flowerpot on your head?"

Serapis raised his bushy brown eyebrows. He patted his head as if he'd forgotten about the basket. A few wheat seeds spilled from the top. "That's a _modius_, silly girl. It's one of my holy symbols! The grain basket represents the Underworld, which I control."

"Uh, you do?" I responded dumbly.

"Of course!" Serapis glowered. "Or I did, and soon I will again. But who are you to criticize my fashion choices? A Greek demigod, by the smell of you, carrying a Celestial bronze weapon and an Egyptian staff from the House of Life. Which are you - hero or magician?"

By that point, my hands were trembling. Flowerpot hat or no, Serapis radiated power. Standing so near him, I felt watery inside, as if my heart, my stomach, and my courage were all melting.

'_Get a hold of yourself_,' I thought to myself. '_You've met plenty of gods before_.'

But Serapis was different. His presence felt fundamentally _wrong_ \- as if simply by being here he was pulling my world inside out.

Twenty feet behind the god, Carter the bird landed and changed back to human form. He gestured to me: finger to lips (_shh_), then rolled his hand (_keep him talking_). Carter began to silently concentrate and reach into the Duat.

I had no idea what Carter was planning, but I forced myself to meet Serapis's eyes. "Who says I'm not both - magician _and_ demigod? Now, explain why you're here!"

Serapis's face darkened. Then, to my surprise, he threw back his head and laughed, spilling more grain from his _modius_. "I see! Trying to impress me, eh? You think yourself worthy of being my high priestess?"

I gulped. There was only one answer to a question like that. "Of course I'm worthy! Why, I was once the _magna mater_ of Athena's cult! But are you worthy of my service?"

"HA!" Serapis grinned. "A big mother of Athena's cult, eh? Let's see how tough you are."

He flicked his hand. A bathtub flew out of the air, straight at my force field. The porcelain burst into shrapnel against the golden sphere, but Carter's staff became so hot that I had to drop it. The white wood burned to ashes.

'_Great_,' I thought. Two minutes, and I've already ruined Carter's staff.

My protective shield was gone. I was facing a fifteen-foot-tall god with only my usual weapons - a tiny dagger and a lot of attitude.

To my left, the three-headed monster was still trying to recover from the clawing it received from Carter. Who knew that getting clawed by a hawk's talons hurt so much...

Meanwhile, Carter had summoned a piece of chalk from the Duat. He scribbled furiously on the concrete floor behind Serapis, perhaps writing a nice epitaph to commemorate their imminent death. It was nice to know that _someone_ had priorities...

Suddenly, I recalled a quote Frank had once shared with me - something from Sun Tzu's _The Art of War. _

_When weak, act strong. _

I stood straight and laughed in Serapis's face. "Throw things at me all you want, Lord Serapis. I don't even need a staff to defend myself. My powers are too great! Or perhaps you want to stop wasting my time and tell me how I may serve you, _assuming_ I agree to become your new high priestess."

The god's face glowed with outrage.

I was sure he would drop the entire whirlwind of debris on me, and there was no way I would be able to stop it. I considered throwing my dagger at Serapis' eye, the way Rachel Elizabeth Dare had once distracted the Titan Kronos, but I didn't trust my aim.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Serapis gave me a twisted smile. "You have courage, girl. I'll grant you that. And you did make haste to find me. Perhaps you _can_ serve. You will be

the first of many to give me your power, your life, your very soul!"

"Sounds fun," I said as I glanced at Carter, wishing he would hurry up with that chalk art.

"But first," Serapis said, "I must have my staff!"

He gestured towards the staff, which was still whining in pain. A red hieroglyph burned on over the scratch, healing it in what appeared to be a painful manner, judging by the whimper of pain the monster let out as the hieroglyph burned itself over the scratch.

The three-headed monster got to its forepaws, shaking off the pain.

"Hold it!" I yelled.

As soon as I said that, the monster's three heads snapped towards me and snarled at me.

Serapis scowled. "What now, girl?"

"Well, I should ... you know, present the staff to you, as your high priestess!

We should do things properly!"

I lunged for the monster. It was much too heavy for me to pick up, but I stuck my dagger in my belt and used both hands to grab the end of the creature's conical shell, dragging it backward, away from the god.

Meanwhile, Carter had drawn a big circle about the size of a hula-hoop on the concrete. He was now decorating it with hieroglyphs, using several different colors of chalk.

'_By all means_,' I thought with frustration. '_Take your time and make it pretty_!'

I managed to smile at Serapis while holding back the staff monster that was still trying to claw its way forward.

"Now, my lord," I said, "tell me your glorious plan! Something about souls and lives?"

The staff monster howled in protest, probably because it could see Carter hiding behind the god, doing his top-secret pavement art. Serapis, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice.

"Behold!" He spread his muscular arms. "The new center of my power!"

Red sparks blazed through the frozen whirlwind. A web of light connected the dots until I could see the glowing outline of the structure Serapis was building: a massive tower three hundred feet tall, designed in three tapering tiers - a square bottom, an octagonal middle, and a circular top. At the zenith blazed a fire as bright as a Cyclops's forge.

"A lighthouse," I said. "The Lighthouse of Alexandria."

"Indeed, my young priestess." Serapis paced back and forth like a teacher giving a lecture, though his floral-print shorts were pretty distracting. His wicker-basket hat kept tilting to one side or the other, spilling grain. Somehow he still failed to notice Carter squatting behind him, scribbling pretty pictures with his chalk.

"Alexandria!" the god cried. "Once the greatest city in the world, the ultimate fusion of Greek and Egyptian power! I was its supreme god, and now I have risen again. I will create my new capital here!"

"Uh ... in Rockaway Beach?" I commented lamely.

Serapis stopped and scratched his beard. 'You have a point. That name won't do. We will call it... Rockandria? Serapaway? Well, we'll figure that out later! Our first step is to complete my new lighthouse. It will be a beacon to the world - drawing the deities of Ancient Greece and Egypt here to me just as it did in the old days. I shall feed on their essence and become the most powerful god of all!"

I felt as if I'd swallowed a tablespoon of salt. "_Feed on their essence_. You mean, destroy them?'

Serapis waved dismissively. "_Destroy_ is such an ugly word. I prefer_ incorporate_. You know my history, I hope? When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt -"

"He tried to merge the Greek and Egyptian religions," I said.

"Tried and failed." Serapis chuckled. "Alexander chose an Egyptian sun god, Amun, to be his main deity. That didn't work too well. The Greeks didn't like Amun. Neither did the Egyptians of the Nile Delta. They saw Amun as an upriver god. But when Alexander died, his general took over Egypt."

"Ptolemy the First," I promptly said.

Serapis beamed, obviously pleased. 'Yes ... Ptolemy. Now, there was a mortal with _vision_!"

It took all of my will not to stare at Carter, who had now completed his magic circle and was tapping the hieroglyphs with his finger, muttering something under his breath as if to activate them.

The three-headed staff monster snarled in disapproval. It tried to lunge forward, and I barely managed to hold him back. My fingers were weakening. The creature's aura was as nauseating as ever.

"Ptolemy created a new god," I said, straining with the effort. "He created you."

Serapis shrugged. "Well, not from _scratch_. I was once a minor village god. Nobody had even heard of me! But Ptolemy discovered my statue and brought it to Alexandria. He had the Greek and Egyptian priests do auguries and incantations and whatnot. They all agreed that I was the great god Serapis, and I should be worshipped above all other gods. I was an instant hit!"

Carter rose within his magic circle. He unlatched his gold Eye of Horus necklace and

began swinging it like a lasso.

The three-headed monster roared what was probably a warning to its master: _Look out_!

But Serapis was on a roll. As he spoke, the hieroglyphic and Greek tattoos on his skin glowed more brightly.

"I became the most important god of the Greeks and Egyptians!" he said. "As more people worshipped me, I drained the power of the older gods. Slowly but surely, I took their place. The Underworld? I became its master, replacing both Hades and Osiris. The guard dog Cerberus transformed into my staff, which you now hold. His three heads represent the past, present, and future - all of which I will control when the staff is returned to my grasp."

The god held out his hand. The monster strained to reach him. My arm muscles burned. My fingers began to slip.

Carter was still swinging his pendant, muttering an incantation.

'_Holy Hecate_,' I thought, _'how long does it take to cast a stupid spell?_'

I caught Carter's gaze and saw the message in his eyes: _Hold on. Just another few seconds._

At that point, I wasn't sure I had a few more seconds.

"The Ptolemaic dynasty …" I said, gritting my teeth. "It fell centuries ago. Your cult was forgotten. How is it that you're back now?"

Serapis sniffed. "That's not important. The one who awakened me ... well, he has delusions of grandeur. He thinks he can control me just because he found some old spells in the Book of Thoth."

Behind the god, Carter flinched as if he'd been smacked between the eyes. Apparently, this 'Book of Thoth' struck a chord with him.

"You see," Serapis continued, "back in the day, King Ptolemy decided it wasn't enough to make _me_ a major god. He wanted to become immortal, too. He declared himself a god, but his magic backfired. After his death, his family was cursed for generations. The Ptolemaic line grew weaker and weaker until that silly girl Cleopatra committed suicide and gave everything to the Romans."

The god sneered. "Mortals ... always so greedy. The magician who awakened me _this_ time thinks he can do better than Ptolemy. Raising me was only one of his experiments with hybrid Greek-Egyptian magic. He wishes to make himself a god, but he has overstepped himself. I am awake now. I will control the universe."

Serapis fixed his gaze upon me with his brilliant green eyes. His features seemed to shift, reminding me of many different Olympians: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades. Something about his smile even reminded me of my own mother.

"Just think, little demigod,' Serapis said, "this lighthouse will draw the gods to me like moths to a candle. Once I have consumed their power, I will raise a great city. I will build a new Alexandrian library with all the knowledge of the ancient world, both Greek and Egyptian. As a child of Athena, you should appreciate this. As my high priestess, think of all the power you will have!"

_A new Alexandrian library._

I couldn't pretend that the idea didn't thrill me. So much knowledge of the ancient world had been destroyed when that library had burned.

Serapis must have seen the hunger in my eyes.

"Yes." He extended his hand. "Enough talk, girl. Give me my staff!"

"You're right," I croaked. "Enough talk."

I drew my dagger and plunged it into the monster's shell.

So many things could have gone wrong. Most of them did.

I was hoping the knife would split the shell, maybe even destroy the monster. Instead, it opened a tiny fissure that spewed red magic as hot as a line of magma. I stumbled back, my eyes stinging.

Serapis bellowed, "TREACHERY!" The staff creature howled and thrashed, its three heads trying in vain to reach the knife stuck in its back.

At the same moment, Carter cast his spell. He threw his gold necklace and yelled, "_Wedjat!_"

The pendant exploded. A giant golden hieroglyph enveloped the god-like a see-through coffin.

Serapis roared as his arms were pinned to his side.

Carter shouted, "I name you Serapis, God of Alexandria! God of the sun, fertility, healing, the afterlife, and three-headed staffs! I bind you with the power of Horus!"

Debris began falling out of the air, crashing around me. I dodged a brick wall and a fuse box. Then I noticed the wounded staff monster crawling towards Serapis.

I lunged in that direction, only to get smacked in the head by a falling piece of timber. I hit the floor hard, my skull throbbing and was immediately buried in more debris.

I took a shaky breath. "Ow, ow, ow."

'_At least I hadn't been buried in bricks,_' I grimly thought to myself. I kicked my way out of a pile of plywood and plucked a six-inch splinter out of my shirt.

The monster had made it to Serapis's feet. I knew I should have stabbed one of the monster's heads, but I just couldn't make myself do it. I had always been and still am a softie when it comes to animals, even if they were part of a magical evil creature trying to kill me. Now it was too late.

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of the Staff of Serapis. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**The next chapter **_**should**_** wrap up the Staff of Serapis portion of the fic. If not the next chapter, then the following.**

**The reason this is so late is that I was **_**hoping**_** to get some reviews, a nice number of people follow/favoriting the companion one-shot or a nice number of people joining the Discord server I created. None of those happened. I got no reviews and 2 people joining the server, with only one person actually accepting the rules. It was kinda a bummer. **

**I decided to write this because my first story, Lord and Lady Lupus, hit 100 favorites and 50 reviews. I was shocked. I never imagined that my writing would get that popular, so thank you to all who have added it to their favorites list or reviewed it. If you haven't already done so, please, go check it out!**

**A word on current events:**

**I am American, so I feel it would be remiss not to mention the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis Police Officer. For all of the African-Americans out there reading this, I want you all to know that I stand behind you (despite being just about as white as you can be). Black Lives Matter. Not just Black Lives either, all lives. White Lives, Latino Lives, Asian Lives, Pacific Islander Lives, White Lives, etc. Racial discrimination should have no place in the world.**

**Shoutouts to:**

**Nobody (😢) for Reviewing**

**Nightcat77 and booknerdproblems for Following **

**Nightcat77 and booknerdproblems for Favoriting**

**Just a fan of fics and for joining my Discord**

**Asmodeus Stahl**


	9. The Staff of Serapis Part 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

**I have created a Discord server. The code is hfKwz9k. The link is also in my profile. I hope to see you all there!**

* * *

Hey all, I'm back. Before I get started with the story, let me just consult my notes to see where Annabeth left off. Yes, I know I should've done this before I started recording, but I was a bit lazy.

Right, Annabeth binding Serapis. To be completely honest, I wasn't exactly sure that it would work, but it was worth a shot.

As Annabeth kicked her way out of the plywood, Serapis merely flexed his muscles and shattered the golden prison I had trapped him in, evaporating the protective circle I had made into a cloud of red steam. One word flashed through my mind as he summoned his staff to him and turned to face me - '_Shit._'

He then cried angrily, "You would bind me? You would name me? You do not even have the proper language to name me, little magician!"

As Serapis blew up at me, I could see Annabeth stumble forward. I myself was barely maintaining my ground. My breathing was shallow. Now that Serapis held the staff, his aura felt ten times more powerful. My ears buzzed. My ankles turned to mush. I could feel my life force being drained away - vacuumed into the red halo of the god.

Fortunately, I'd faced much worse during what Sadie continues to refer to as our "vacation to the shores of Chaos." That was no vacation, let me tell you.

I decided to channel my inner Sadie when responding to Serapis, "Right, you said proper language, yeah? How about this - _HA-DI!_"

Unfortunately, the hieroglyph produced was merely swiped out of the air by Serapis with his free hand. He closed his fist and smoke shot between his fingers, as if he'd just crushed a miniature steam engine.

I gulped at seeing Serapis swipe the hieroglyph out of the air and managed to stutter out, "That's impossible. How -"

Before I could finish, Serapis interrupted me and said, "Expecting an explosion?"

He laughed for a bit before continuing, "Sorry to disappoint you, child, but my power is both Greek and Egyptian. It combines both, consumes both, replaces both. You are favored of Horus, I see? Excellent. He was once my son."

"What?" I cried out in shock.

"Oh, yes! When I deposed both Osiris and Zeus, and Isis forced to serve as my wife, Horus was forced to serve me as my son. Now I will use you as a gateway to summon him here and bind him. Horus will once again be my son! With him by my side, I will be undefeatable!"

Serapis thrust out his staff. From each of the three monstrous mouths, red tendrils of light shot forth, encircling me like thorny branches.

As I screamed, I could see Annabeth grab a sheet of plywood - a wobbly square about the size of a shield - and yell, "Hey, Grain Head!"

She twisted from the waist, using the force of her entire body. The plywood sailed through the air just as Serapis turned to look at her, and the edge smacked him between the eyes.

"GAH!" he yelled.

As I tried to recover from the tendrils of light, which were much worse than they sound, Annabeth dived to one side as Serapis blindly thrust his staff in her direction. The three monster heads blasted super-heated plumes of vapor, melting a hole in the concrete where Annabeth had just been standing.

She kept moving, picking her way through mounds of debris that now littered the floor. She dived behind a pile of broken toilets as the god's staff blasted another triple column of steam in her direction, which came really close to her, close enough to make me worry for her life.

By the time I was able to stagger away from Serapis, Annabeth was already a good 30 yards away from me.

As I was staggering away, Annabeth made eye contact with me, her eyes conveyed a simple message - '_I'm going to distract him. If you've got something up your sleeve, be prepared to use it_.'

As soon as we lost eye contact, she yelled out, "Hey, Serapis!' How did that plywood taste?"

"Child of Athena!" the god bellowed in response. "I will devour your life force! I will use you to destroy your wretched mother! You think you are wise? You are nothing compared to the one who awakened me, and even he does not understand the power he has unleashed. None of you shall gain the crown of immortality. I control the past, present, and future. I alone will rule the gods!"

'_Thank the gods for that long speech…_' I thought to myself.

As I prepared to pop out of my hiding place to do my part in distracting Serapis, he had blasted Annabeth's position, turning the toilets into a porcelain slag heap. Fortunately for Annabeth though, she had crept halfway across the room by that point.

When Annabeth got about ten feet away from me, I popped up out of my hiding spot and shouted: "Suh-FAH!"

To be completely honest, I was rather surprised at how well it worked. Mortar disintegrated. The side of the building groaned, and as Serapis screamed, "NO!" the entire wall collapsed on top of him in a brick tidal wave, burying him under a thousand tons of wreckage.

As Annabeth stumbled her way over to my side, I merely stared at the gaping hole I'd made in the side of the building.

"That worked," I muttered, half to myself.

"It was genius!" Annabeth explained as she gave me a fist bump. "What spell was that?"

"Loosen," I replied without hesitation. "I figured ... well, making things fall apart is usually

easier than putting them together."

As if in agreement, the remaining shell of the building creaked and rumbled.

"Come on," Annabeth said as she took my hand. "We need to get out of here. These

walls -"

The foundations shook. From beneath the rubble came a muffled roar. Shafts of red light shot from gaps in the debris.

"Oh, please!" I protested. "He's still alive?"

"He's a god. He's immortal," Annabeth replied.

"Well, then how -?" I began to say.

Serapis's hand, still clutching his staff, thrust through the bricks and boards. The monster's three heads blasted shafts of steam in all directions. Annabeth's knife remained hilt-deep in the monster's shell, the scar around it venting red-hot hieroglyphs, Greek letters and English curse words - thousands of years of bad language spilling free.

I then muttered, "Come fucking on. You've got to be shitting me. Why the hell do I never get a break?"

* * *

**Annabeth POV:**

Surprised to see me in this chapter? Yeah, well, Carter just played back up for most of the rest of the fight with Serapis, so I decided to take over for him.

So, as Carter was swearing about his miserable existence, I was pondering over something Serapis had said. '_Okay, so he said that he_ _controlled the past, present, and future. It's almost like a timeline_."

I then voiced my thought out loud to Carter, "Past, present, and future. He controls

them all."

Carter replied, "Huh? What relevance does that have?"

"I'll explain later, but the staff is the key. We have to destroy it."

Before Carter could say anything, I sprinted towards the pile of rubble. My eyes were fixed on the hilt of my dagger, but I was too late.

Serapis's other arm broke free, then his head, his flower-basket hat crushed and leaking grain. My plywood Frisbee had broken his nose and blackened his eyes, leaving a mask like a raccoon's.

"Kill you!" he bellowed, just as Carter yelled out: "_Suh-FAH!_"

I beat a hasty retreat, and Serapis screamed, 'NO!' as another thirty-story section of wall collapsed on top of him.

The magic must have been too much for Carter. To be honest, I was surprised at how much he could do, as Sadie was typically the one who used divine words when the two of them got into fights. As he crumbled like a rag doll, I caught him just before his head hit the ground. As the remaining sections of wall shuddered and leaned inward, I scooped up Carter and carried him outside.

Somehow, I cleared the building before the rest of it collapsed. I heard the tremendous roar, but I wasn't sure if it was the devastation behind me or the sound of my own skull splitting from pain and exhaustion.

I staggered on until she reached the subway tracks. At that point, I set Carter down

gently in the weeds.

Carter's eyes rolled back in his head as he muttered incoherently. His skin felt so feverish that I had to fight down a sense of panic. Steam rose from his sleeves.

Over by the train wreck, the mortals had noticed the new disaster. Emergency vehicles were peeling away, heading for the collapsed apartment building. A news helicopter circled overhead.

I was tempted to yell for medical help, but, before I could, Carter inhaled sharply.

He spat a chip of concrete out of his mouth, sat up weakly, and stared at the column of dust churning into the sky from their little adventure.

I sighed in relief. "Thank the gods you're okay. You were literally steaming."

"Ugh. That one of the unfortunate hazards of being a magician" Carter brushed some dust off his face. "Too much magic and I can literally burn up. That's about as close to spontaneously combusting as I'd like to come today."

I nodded, remembering that Sadie had once said something similar to that when Percy introduced us.

"No more magic for you," I commanded.

Carter grimaced. "I don't suppose Serapis is defeated?"

I gazed towards the site of the would-be lighthouse. I wanted to think Serapis was gone, but I knew better. I could still feel his aura disrupting the world, pulling at my soul, and draining my energy.

"We've got a few minutes at best," I guessed. "He'll work his way free. Then he'll come after us."

Carter groaned. "We need reinforcements. Sadly, there isn't an Egyptian artifact nearby that I could use to create a portal. Do you have any way of contacting someone, say Percy?/;

"If only …" I muttered.

At that moment, I realized my backpack was still on my shoulder. How had it not slipped off during the fight? And why did it feel so light?

I unslung the pack and opened the top. The architecture books were gone. Instead, nestled at the bottom was a brownie-sized square of ambrosia wrapped in cellophane, and under that...

My lower lip trembled as I pulled out something I hadn't carried with me in a long time: my battered blue New York Yankees cap.

I glanced up at the darkening sky. "Mom?"

No reply, but I couldn't think of any other explanation. My mother had sent me help. The realization both encouraged and terrified me. If Athena was taking a personal interest in this situation, Serapis truly was a monumental threat - not just to me, but to the gods.

"It's a baseball cap," Carter noted. "Is that good?"

"I - I think so," I replied hesitantly. "The last time I wore it, the magic didn't work. But if it _does_ ... I might have a plan. It'll be your turn to keep Serapis distracted."

Carter frowned. "I can't use magic anymore, so what can I do?"

I instantly replied. "No big deal. How are you at bluffing, lying, and trash-talking?"

Carter thought for a moment and then replied, "Well, if you had asked before I discovered I was a magician, I would've told you I was shit at that. But, now, after living with Sadie 24/7 for as long as I have? I'd say I'm halfway decent at that."

"Excellent," I replied. "Then it's time I taught you some Greek."

They didn't have long, but it was long enough.

I had barely finished coaching Carter when the ruined building shook, debris exploded outward, and Serapis emerged, roaring and cursing.

Startled emergency workers scattered from the scene, but they didn't seem to notice the fifteen-foot-tall god marching away from the wreckage, his three-headed staff spewing steam and red beams of magic into the sky.

Serapis headed straight in our direction.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Here," I said as I gave him the square of ambrosia. "Demigod food. It might restore your strength."

"_Might?_"

"If I can use your healing potion, you should be able to eat ambrosia."

'"Well, let's hope for the best then." Carter took a bite. Color returned to his cheeks. His eyes brightened. "It tastes like birthday cake."

I smiled, and said "Huh, interesting. Ambrosia always tastes like your favorite comfort food. I wonder why that's yours…"

Instead of answering my indirect question, Carter took another bite and swallowed, before saying, "Here he comes."

Serapis kicked a fire engine out of his way and lumbered towards the train tracks. He didn't seem to have spotted us yet, but I guessed he could _sense_ us. He scanned the horizon, his expression full of murderous rage.

"Here we go, "I said as I donned my Yankees cap.

Carter's eyes widened. "Nice! You won't start shooting sparks, will you?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Oh ... I, uh, cast an invisibility spell once. Didn't work out so well. Anyway, good luck."

"You too."

I dashed to one side as Carter waved his arms and yelled, "Yo, Serapis!"

"DEATH TO YOU!" the god bellowed.

He barrelled forward, his massive feet making craters in the tarmac.

As we'd planned, Carter backed towards the beach, as I crouched behind an abandoned car and waited for Serapis to pass. Invisible or not, I wasn't going to take any chances.

"Come on!" Carter taunted the god. "Is that the fastest you can run, you overgrown village idiot?"

"RAR!" Serapis yelled as he charged past my position.

I ran after Serapis, who caught up with Carter at the edge of the surf.

The god raised his glowing staff, all three monstrous heads belching steam. "Any last words, magician?"

"Yes," Carter stated as he whirled his arms in movements that could've been magic - or possibly kung fu.

"_Meana aedei thea!_" Carter chanted, reciting the lines I had taught him. "_En ... ponte pathen algae!_"

I winced. Carter's pronunciation was pretty bad. He'd got the first line right, more or less: _Sing of rage, O goddess_. But the second line should've been: _In the sea, suffer misery_. Instead, Carter had said something like: _In the sea, suffer moss!_

Fortunately, the sound of Ancient Greek was enough to shock Serapis. The god wavered, his three-headed staff still raised. "What are you -"

"Horus, hear me!" Carter continued. "Athena, to my aid!" He rattled off some more phrases - some Greek, some Ancient Egyptian.

Meanwhile, I sneaked up behind the god, my eyes on the dagger still impaled in the monster's shell. If Serapis would just lower his staff ...

"Alpha, beta, gamma!" Carter cried. "Gyros, spanakopita. Presto!" He beamed in triumph. "There. You're done for!"

Serapis stared at him, clearly baffled. The red tattoos on his skin dimmed. A few of the symbols turned into question marks and sad faces. I crept closer ... twenty feet from him now.

"Done for?" Serapis asked. 'What on earth are you talking about, boy? I'm about to destroy you."

'And if you do," Carter warned, "you will activate the death link that sends you

to oblivion!"

"Death link? There is no such thing!" Serapis lowered his staff. The three animal heads were level with my eyes.

My heart pounded. Ten feet to go. Then, if I jumped, I might be able to reach the dagger. I'd only have one chance to pull it out.

The heads of the staff didn't seem to notice me. They snarled and snapped, spitting steam in random directions. Wolf, lion, dog - past, present, and future.

To do maximum damage, I knew which head she had to strike.

But why did the future have to be a dog? That black Labrador was the least threatening of the monster heads. With its big gold eyes and floppy ears, it reminded me of too many friendly pets she'd known.

'_It's not a real animal,_' I told herself. '_It's part of a magical staff._'

But, as she got within striking distance, her arms grew heavy. She couldn't

look at the dog without feeling guilty.

The future is a good thing, the dog seemed to say. It's cute and fuzzy!

If I struck at the Labrador's head, what if she killed her own future - the plans I had for college, the plans she'd made with all my friends back at camp ...?

Carter was still talking. His tone had taken on a harder edge.

"My mother, Ruby Kane," Carter told Serapis, "she gave her life to seal Apophis in the Duat. Apophis, mind you - who is thousands of years older than you and much more powerful. So if you think I'm going to let a second-rate god take over the world, think again!"

The anger in his voice was no mere bluff, and suddenly I was glad I'd given Carter the job of facing down Serapis. Despite his nerdy appearance, he was surprisingly terrifying when she wanted to be.

Serapis shifted his weight uneasily. "I will destroy you!"

"Good luck," Carter said. "I've bound you with Greek and Egyptian spells so powerful they will scatter your atoms to the stars."

"You lie!" Serapis yelled. "I feel no spell upon me. Even the one who summoned me had no such magic."

I was face to face with the black dog. The dagger was just overhead, but every molecule in my body rebelled at the idea of killing the animal ... killing the future.

Meanwhile, Carter managed a brave laugh. "The one who summoned you? You mean that old con artist Setne?"

I didn't know the name, but Serapis obviously did. The air around him rippled with heat. The lion snarled. The wolf bared its teeth.

"Oh, yes," Carter continued. 'I'm very familiar with Setne. I suppose he didn't tell you who let him back into the world. He's only alive because _I _spared him. You think _his_ magic is powerful? Try me. Do it NOW."

I stirred. I realized Carter was talking to _me_, not the god. The bluff was getting old. I was out of time.

Serapis sneered. "Nice try, magician."

As he raised his staff to strike, I jumped. My hand closed around the hilt of the dagger, and I pulled it free.

"What?" Serapis cried.

I let loose a guttural sob and plunged my dagger into the dog's neck. I expected an explosion.

Instead, the dagger was sucked into the dog's neck like a paper clip into a vacuum cleaner. I barely had time to let go.

I rolled free as the dog howled, shrinking, and shriveling until it imploded into the monster's shell. Serapis roared. He shook his scepter but he couldn't seem to let go of it.

"What have you done?" he cried.

"Taken your future," I responded smugly. "Without that, you're nothing."

The staff cracked open. It grew so hot that I felt the hairs on my arms start to burn. I crawled backwards through the sand as the lion and wolf heads were sucked into the shell. The entire staff collapsed into a red fireball in the god's palm.

Serapis tried to shake it off. It only glowed brighter. His fingers curled inward. His hand was consumed. His entire arm contracted and vaporized as it was drawn into the fiery sphere.

"I cannot be destroyed!" Serapis yelled. "I am the pinnacle of your worlds combined! Without my guidance, you will never attain the crown! You all shall perish! You shall -"

The fireball flared and sucked the god into its vortex. Then it winked out as if it had never existed.

* * *

"Ugh," Carter groaned.

They sat on the beach at sunset, watching the tide and listening to the wail of emergency vehicles behind them.

Poor Rockaway. First a hurricane. Then a train wreck, a building collapse, and a rampaging god all in one day. Some communities never catch a break.

I sipped my Pepsi that Carter had summoned from his "personal storage area" in the Duat.

"Don't worry," Carter assured me. "Summoning snacks isn't hard magic."

As thirsty as Annabeth was, the Pepsi tasted even better than nectar.

Carter seemed to be on the mend. The ambrosia had done its work. Now, rather than looking as if he was at death's door, he merely looked as if he'd been run over by a pack of mules.

The waves lapped at my feet, helping me relax, but still, I felt a residual disquiet from my encounter with Serapis - a humming in my body, as if all my bones had become tuning forks.

"You mentioned a name," I said out of the blue. "Setne?"

Carter winced. "It's a long story. Evil magician, back from the dead."

"Oh, I hate it when evil people come back from the dead. You said ... you allowed him to go free?"

"Well, technically that was Sadie, but that's not important. We needed his help. At the time, we didn't have much of a choice. At any rate, Setne escaped with the Book of Thoth, the most dangerous collection of spells in the world."

"And Setne used that magic to awaken Serapis," I guessed.

"Stands to reason." Carter shrugged. "The crocodile monster Percy and Sadie fought a while ago, the Son of Sobek ... I wouldn't be surprised if that was another of Setne's experiments. He's trying to combine Greek and Egyptian magic."

After the day I'd just had, I wanted to put her invisibility cap back on, crawl into a hole, and sleep forever. I'd saved the world enough times already. I didn't want to think about another potential threat. Yet, I couldn't ignore it. I fingered the brim of her Yankees cap and thought about why Athena had given it back to me today - its magic restored.

Athena seemed to be sending a message: _There will always be threats too powerful to face head-on. You are not done with stealth. You must tread carefully here._

"Setne wants to be a god," I said.

The wind off the water suddenly turned cold. It smelled less like fresh sea air, more like burning ruins.

"A god …" Carter shuddered. That scrawny old man with the loincloth and Elvis hair. What a horrible thought."

I tried to picture the guy Carter was describing. Then I decided she didn't want to.

"If Setne's goal is immortality," I said, "waking Serapis won't be his last trick."

Carter laughed without humor. "Oh, no. He's only playing with us now. The Son of Sobek ... Serapis. I'd wager that Setne planned both events just to see what would happen, how the demigods and magicians would react. He's testing his new magic, and our capabilities, before he makes his real bid for power."

"He can't succeed," I said optimistically. "No one can make themselves a god just by casting a spell."

Carter's expression wasn't reassuring. "I hope you're right. Because a god who knows both Greek and Egyptian magic, who can control both worlds ... I can't even and don't want to imagine."

My stomach twisted as if it were learning a new yoga position. In any war, good planning was more important than sheer power. If this Setne had orchestrated Percy and Sadie's battle with that crocodile, if he'd engineered Serapis's rise so Carter and I would be drawn to confront him... An enemy who planned so well would be very hard to stop.

I dug my toes into the sand. "Serapis said something else before he disappeared - 'y_ou will never attain the crown._' I thought he meant it like a metaphor. Then I remembered what he said about Ptolemy I, the king who tried to become a god -'

"The crown of immortality," Carter recalled. "Maybe a pschent."

I frowned. "I don't know that word. A shent?"

Carter spelled it. "It's an Egyptian crown that looks rather like a bowling pin. The pschent invested the pharaoh with his divine power. If Setne is trying to re-create the old king's god-making magic, I bet you five bucks that he's trying to find the crown of Ptolemy."

I decided not to take that bet. "We have to stop him."

"Agreed." Carter sipped his Pepsi. "I'll go back to Brooklyn House. I'll put our researchers to work and see what we can learn about Ptolemy. Perhaps his crown is sitting in a museum somewhere."

I traced my finger through the sand. Without really thinking about it, I drew the hieroglyphic symbol for Horus: the Eye of Horus. "I'll do some research, too. My friends in the Hecate cabin may know something about Ptolemy's magic. Maybe I can get my mom to advise me."

Thinking about my mother made me a bit uneasy.

Today, Serapis had been on the verge of destroying both myself and Carter. He'd threatened to use them as gateways to draw Athena and Horus to their doom.

Carter's eyes were stormy as if he were thinking the same thoughts. "We can't let Setne keep experimenting. He'll rip our worlds apart. We have to find this crown, or -"

Before he could finish, a loud screech could be heard. Carter and I looked up to see a massive bird, that I knew to be Carter's Griffin, Freak, pulling a reed boat flying through the clouds with a seemingly angry Zia riding in the reed boat.

Carter's voice suddenly faltered as he said, "Ah, shit. My ride is here, and it looks like Zia is pissed."

I replied, "I should probably go too. See you around Carter."

We then exchanged a friendly (nothing more, you weirdos) hug, before parting ways.

'Stay safe," I called out to him

"Hardly ever," Carter responded as he climbed into the boat, and Freak took off. Fog rose out of nowhere, thickening around Freak. When the mist cleared, Freak and Carter Kane were gone.

I stared at the empty ocean. I thought about the Mist and the Duat and how they were connected.

Mostly she thought about the staff of Serapis, and the howl the black dog had

made when I'd stabbed it with my dagger.

"That wasn't my future I destroyed," I assured myself. "I make my own future."

But somewhere out there, a magician named Setne had other ideas. If I was going to stop him, I had planning to do.

I then turned and set out across the beach, heading east on the long journey back to Camp Half-Blood.

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of the Staff of Serapis. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**The reason this chapter is so long is that there really wasn't a good place to break the chapter without making one part super short and the other super long. Please, give me your thoughts and concerns!**

**The next chapter will be the beginning of The Crown of Ptolemy, which likely won't have too many changes, due to the fact that the four are all together. It'll be different though - don't you worry!**

**The next update will be at 25 reviews and/or 10 people on the Discord server****.**

**Now, to answer the review:**

**AlEmily360: Glad to hear you enjoyed the chapter! Here is the update you were looking for.**

**Shoutouts to:**

**AlEmily360 for Reviewing**

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**Arka Kizuna, AlEmily360, and vinifan for Favoriting**

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**\- Asmodeus Stahl**


	10. The Crown of Ptolemy Part 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. I'm not dead, nor is this story abandoned. With that said, welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

**Percy POV:**

A few weeks after Carter and Annabeth dealt with Serapis, I decided to take Sadie out on another date. I, being the excellent boyfriend I was, decided to let Sadie choose where to go. It's a lesson I learned while dating Annabeth - happy girlfriend, happy life. At that point, Sadie and I had been on a few dates, most of which were of my choosing, so this time I felt like Sadie should choose.

Sadie ended up choosing Governors Island. Why Governors Island? I suspect it had something to do with the 300-foot-long zipline that allows people to travel up to 21 miles an hour.

Sadie is a bit of an adrenaline junkie at times, let me tell you.

Naturally, things didn't exactly go as we had planned.

* * *

The morning was mostly fine with only a few small monster appearances. The usual Scythian Dracanae and Karpos that I was able to take care of. Things that have been common since the return of Kronos and Gaea.

However, around midday things started to change. The skies darkened. Clouds started to move in out of nowhere. I'd only seen things like this happen when I was fighting a monster and formed my own personal hurricane.

Go figures the mortals decided this was a freak hurricane and evacuated the island, ruining my date.

Sadie and I shared a look that said, '_This isn't a hurricane. This is a monster. And a powerful one, at that._'

After Sadie cast some invisibility spells on us, we immediately ran in the direction the 'hurricane' was coming from. When we arrived, we were greeted with a sight that will scar me for the rest of my days - an old, runty, Elvis Presley impersonator, strutting back and forth in skinny black jeans, a powder-blue dress shirt, and a black leather jacket.

I still shudder when thinking of him. Not a pretty sight, let me tell you. Although, compared to my reaction, Sadie's was almost worse. Upon seeing this runty Elvis impersonator, she immediately inhaled sharply and began cursing under her breath in what I assumed was a combination of Ancient Egyptian and British swears, since I didn't know what any of them meant and only half of them sounded anything remotely like English. She only stopped cussing long enough for me to ask who this person was and why she was so pissed.

Her response was one word - "Setne."

That response gave me mixed emotions. Sure, I hated the guy, I mean, he's not a good dude. But, on the other hand, he _is_ the reason that Sadie and I even got together in the first place. That being said, I didn't know what I wanted to do first, slap him across the face and try and kill him or thank him for fixing my love life.

While it was tempting to thank him, one look at Sadie told me that thanking him would lead to a world of pain in the near future. That being taken into account, I slipped my hand into my pocket and fingered Riptide's cap, ready for when Setne might notice us and we'd have to spring into action.

The longer Sadie and I stood around, the crazier and crazier the hurricane got. By the time five minutes had elapsed, the storm had strengthened from a regular hurricane to one that had winged fire-breathing death snakes. Not a fun combination, let me tell you.

It was at that point that Sadie and I realized that backup would probably come in handy. Sadie and I each pulled out our phones and tried to contact Carter and Annabeth, respectively. Unfortunately for us, neither of them picked up. Whether that be due to some interference caused by Setne and his storm or something else we didn't know. What we did know, however, was that we were on our own for this.

I voiced my thoughts to Sadie, who responded, "Looks like we're improvising then. Any ideas?"

I peeked around the corner. At the far end of an arched entryway, a grass courtyard stretched about a hundred yards square, surrounded by red brick buildings. I had read on the internet that this place was a fort or something from the Revolutionary War, but I hadn't paid attention to the details. Our main problem was Setne, who was standing in the middle of the lawn doing a magic ritual.

In his hands, he held an old scroll, like a treasure map. As he paced, he read aloud from it, occasionally throwing back his head and laughing. Basically, the dude was in full-on crazy mode.

If that wasn't creepy enough, flying around him were half a dozen winged serpents, blowing flames in the rain.

Overhead, lightning flashed. Thunder shook my molars.

Next to me, Sadie informed me, "The scroll he's holding is the Book of Thoth. Dirty bastard stole it from me and Carter after we defeated Apophis. I'm not sure what spell he's casting, but we have to stop him at all costs."

Naturally, I was in complete agreement about stopping him. Seeing as Sadie didn't have any brilliant ideas, I decided to try and pitch in one of my own.

"How about I distract Setne while you sneak up behind him while under an invisibility spell? You can knock the book out of his hands."

Sadie knit her eyebrows. Even with her caramel hair plastered to the side of her face, she looked cute. Her eyes were the same color as a stormy sky on its way to a full-blown thunderstorm.

"Setne is one of the world's greatest magicians," she responded. "He might be able to see through invisibility. Plus, if you run out there, he'll probably zap you with a spell. Believe me, Egyptian magic is not something you want to get zapped with."

I groaned, "I know. You forget that your brother walloped me with a glowing blue fist when we told him that we were dating. But, unless you have any better ideas..."

Sadie scratched the back of her head awkwardly as she said, "Forgot about that… sorry."

I responded, "Don't worry about it. It was bound to happen eventually. Gods know I'll be doing something similar to each of Estelle's boyfriends when the time comes."

We stood there for a few seconds before Sadie sighed and pulled out her wand to start casting an invisibility spell on herself.

"Give me a minute head start. Try to take out those flying snakes first. They should be softer targets," Sadie instructed me.

"Got it." I raised my ballpoint pen, which doesn't sound like an impressive weapon; but it turns into a magic sword when I uncap it. No, seriously. "Will a Celestial bronze blade kill them?"

Sadie frowned. "It should. At least… Annebeth's bronze dagger worked on the staff of Serapis. Of course, that bronze dagger was made from an Egyptian wand, so..."

"I'm getting a headache. Usually, when I get a headache, it's time to stop talking and attack something," I half-groaned.

"Fine. Just remember: our main goal is to get that scroll. Setne can use it to turn himself immortal."

"Understood. No bad guys turning immortal on my watch." I then proceeded to kiss her, because 1) when you're a demigod going into battle, every kiss might be your last, and 2) I like kissing her.

Don't judge me. Yes, I know Sadie is 5 years younger than I am, but, in the grand scheme of things, does it make a difference? It's not like I'm a twenty-something-year-old man kissing a teenager. It's just one teenager, albeit half a decade older, kissing another, who he happens to be dating. Also, re: reason 1.

"Be careful," I told her once we broke the kiss.

I'd love to tell you that I walked in and killed the snakes, Sadie burned Elvis to a crisp and took back the Book of Thoth, and we went home happy.

You'd figure once in a while things would work out the way we planned.

But noooooo.

I gave Sadie a few seconds to sneak into the courtyard.

Then I uncapped my pen, and Riptide sprang to full length—three feet of razor-sharp Celestial bronze. I strolled into the courtyard and sliced the nearest serpent out of the air.

Nothing says "_Hi, neighbor!_" like killing a guy's flying reptile.

The snake didn't disintegrate like most monsters I'd fought. Its two halves just landed in the wet grass. The half with wings flopped around aimlessly.

Setne, or Crazy Elvis as I like to call him, didn't even notice. He kept pacing back and forth, engrossed in his scroll, so I moved farther into the courtyard and sliced another snake.

The storm made it hard to see. Normally I can stay dry when submersed in water, but rain is trickier. It needled my skin and got in my eyes.

Lightning flashed. By the time my vision cleared, two more snakes were dive-bombing me from either side. I jumped backward just as they blew fire.

Note to self, jumping backward is hard when you're holding a sword. It's even harder when the ground is muddy.

Long story short: I slipped and landed on my butt.

Flames shot over my head. The two snakes circled above me like they were too surprised to attack again. Probably they were wondering, '_Did that guy just fall on his butt on purpose? Should we laugh before we kill him? Would that be mean?_'

Before they could decide what to do, Crazy Elvis called out, "Leave him!"

The snakes darted off to join their brethren, who were orbiting ten feet above the magician.

I wanted to get up and face Setne, but my rear end had other ideas. It wanted to stay where it was and be in extreme pain. Butts are like that sometimes. They can be, well, butts.

Setne rolled up his scroll. He sauntered toward me, the rain parting around him like a bead curtain. His winged snakes followed, their flames making plumes of steam in the storm.

"Hi, there!" Setne sounded so casual and friendly, I knew I was in trouble. "You're a demigod, I suppose?"

I wondered how Setne knew that. Maybe he could "smell" a demigod's aura the way Greek monsters could. Or maybe my prankster friends the Stoll brothers had written "I'm a demigod" on my forehead in permanent marker, and Sadie had decided not to tell me. Surprisingly, that happened occasionally.

Setne's smile made his face look even gaunter. Dark eyeliner rimmed his eyes, giving him a hungry, feral stare. Around his neck glittered a golden chain of interlocking ankhs, and from his left ear dangled an ornament that looked like a human finger bone.

"You must be Setne." I managed to get to my feet without killing myself. "Did you get that outfit at the Halloween Store?"

Setne chuckled. "Look, nothing personal, but I'm a little busy at the moment. I'm going to ask you and your girlfriend to wait while I finish my incantation, okay? Once I've summoned the _deshret_, we can chat."

I tried to look confused, which is one of my most convincing expressions. "What girlfriend? I'm alone. Also, why are you summoning a dishrag?"

"It's _deshret_." Setne patted his pompadour. "The red crown of Lower Egypt. As for your girlfriend..."

He wheeled and pointed behind him, shouting something like "_Sun-AH!_" Red hieroglyphs burned in the air where Setne pointed.

Sadie turned visible. There she was — wide-eyed with surprise, caught in the act of sneaking up on Setne. I was about to crap in my pants, to tell the truth.

Before she could react, the red glowing hieroglyphs turned into ropes like licorice whips and lashed out, wrapping around her, pinning her arms and legs with such force that she toppled over.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Let her go!"

The magician grinned. "Invisibility magic. Please. I've been using invisibility spells since the pyramids were under warranty. As I said, this is nothing personal, demigods. I just can't spare the energy to kill you.. .at least not until the summons is over. I hope you understand."

My heart hammered. I'd seen Egyptian magic before, plenty of times. Sadie used it all the time, usually to annoy me because I couldn't use it. However, I had no idea how to stop it, and I couldn't stand to see it used against Sadie, who couldn't defend herself now that she was bound

I charged at Setne. He just waved his hand and muttered, "_Hu-Ai._ "

More stupid hieroglyphs flashed in front of me.

I fell on my face.

My face did not appreciate that. I got mud in my nostrils and blood in my mouth from biting my tongue. When I blinked, the red hieroglyphs burned on the insides of my eyelids.

I groaned. "What was _that_ spell?"

"_Fall,_" Setne said. "One of my favorites. Really, don't get up. You'll just hurt yourself more."

"Setne!" Sadie shouted through the storm. "Listen to me. You _can't _make yourself into a god. It won't work. You'll just destroy —"

The coil of magical red ropes expanded, covering Sadie's mouth.

"I appreciate your concern," said the magician. "Really, I do. But I've got this figured out. That business with Serapis.. .when your insufferable brother destroyed my hybrid god? I learned quite a bit from that. I took excellent notes."

Sadie struggled uselessly.

I wanted to run to her, but I had a feeling I'd just end up with my face in the mud again. I'd have to play this smart.. .which was not my usual style.

I tried to steady my breathing. I scooted sideways, just to see if I could.

"So you were watching in Rockaway Beach?" I asked Setne. "When Annabeth and Carter took down Serapis, that was all an experiment to you?"

"Of course!" Setne looked very pleased with himself. "I jotted down the incantations Serapis used while he tried to raise his new Alexandrian lighthouse. Then it was just a matter of cross-referencing those with the older magic in the Book of Thoth, and _voilá!_ I found exactly the spell combo I need to make myself into a god. It's going to be great. Watch and see!"

He opened his scroll and started chanting again. His winged serpents spiraled through the rain. Lightning flashed. The ground rumbled.

On Setne's left, about fifteen feet away from me, the grass split open. A geyser of flames spewed upward, and the winged serpents flew straight into it. Earth, fire, rain, and serpents swirled into a tornado of elements, merging and solidifying into one huge shape: a coiled cobra with a female human head.

Her reptilian hood was easily six feet across. Her eyes glittered like rubies. A forked tongue flickered between her lips, and her dark hair was plaited with gold. Resting on her head was a sort of crown — a red pillbox-looking thing with a curlicue ornament on the front.

Now, personally, I'm not fond of huge snakes, especially ones with human heads and stupid hats. If I'd summoned this thing, I would've cast a spell to send it back, super quick.

But Setne just rolled up his scroll, slipped it in his jacket pocket, and grinned. "Awesome!"

The cobra lady hissed. "Who dares summon me? I am Wadjet, queen of cobras, protector of Lower Egypt, eternal mistress of—"

"I know!" Setne clapped his hands. "I'm a huge fan!"

I crawled toward Sadie. Not that I could help much with the _fall_ spell keeping me off my feet, but I wanted to be close to her if something went down with this eternal cobra queen of whatever blah, blah, blah. Maybe I could at least use Riptide to cut those red cords and give Sadie a fighting chance.

"Oh, this is so great," Setne continued. He fished something out of his pants pocket… a cell phone.

I suppose even evil masterminds have cell phones… Gotta wonder though, did Kronos or Gaea have one? And if so, were they live-streaming the Apocolypse to all of their rabid fans in Tartarus that couldn't get out in time to join them? Makes you think, doesn't it?

The goddess bared her fangs. She sprayed Setne with a cloud of green mist— poison, I guessed— but he repelled it like the nose cone of a rocket repelled heat.

I kept crawling toward Sadie, who was struggling helplessly in her red- licorice cocoon. Her eyes blazed with frustration. She hated being sidelined worse than just about anything. No surprise there, though.

"Okay, where's the camera icon?" Setne fumbled with his phone. "We have to get a picture together before I destroy you."

"_Destroy me?_" demanded the cobra goddess. She lashed out at Setne, but a sudden gust of rain and wind pushed her back.

I was ten feet away from Setne. Riptide's blade glowed as I dragged it through the mud.

"Let's see." Setne tapped his phone. "Sorry, this is new to me. I'm from the Nineteenth Dynasty. Ah, okay. No. Darn it. Where did the screen go? Ah! Right! So what do modern folks call this...a snappie?" He leaned in toward the cobra goddess, held out his phone at arm's length, and took a picture. "Got it!"

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" Wadjet roared. "YOU DARE TAKE A SELFIE WITH THE COBRA GODDESS?"

"Selfie!" said the magician. "That's right! Thanks. And now I'll take your crown and consume your essence. Hope you don't mind."

"_WHAT?_" The cobra goddess reared and bared her fangs again, but the rain and wind restrained her like a seat belt. Setne shouted something in a mixture of Egyptian and Ancient Greek. A few of the Greek words I understood: _soul_ and _bind_ and possibly _butter_ (though I could be wrong about the last one. I was hungry at the moment, don't judge me). The cobra goddess began to writhe.

I reached Setne just as Setne finished his spell.

The cobra goddess imploded, with a noise like the world's largest straw finishing the world's largest milkshake. Wadjet was sucked into her own red crown, along with Setne's four winged serpents and a five-foot-wide circle of lawn where Wadjet had been coiled.

The crown dropped into the smoking, muddy crater.

Setne laughed in delight. "PERFECT!"

I had to agree, if by _perfect_ he meant _so horrifying I want to vomit and I have to get Sadie out of here right now. _

Setne clambered into the pit to retrieve the crown as I frantically started cutting Sadie's bonds. I'd only managed to ungag her mouth before the bindings blared like an air horn.

My ears popped. My vision went black.

When the sound died and my vertigo faded, Setne was standing over us, the red crown now atop his pompadour.

"The ropes scream if you cut them," he advised. "I guess I should've mentioned that."

Sadie wriggled, trying to free her hands. "What — what did you do to Wadjet?"

"Hmm? Oh." Setne tapped the curlicue at the front of the crown. "I devoured her essence. Now I have the power of Lower Egypt."

"You...devoured a god," I said.

"Yep!" From his jacket, he pulled the Book of Thoth and wagged it at us. "Amazing what kind of knowledge is in here. Ptolemy the First had the right idea, making himself a god, but by the time he became king of Alexandria, Egyptian magic was diluted and weak. He definitely didn't have access to prime source material like the Book of Thoth. With this baby, I'm cooking with spice!

Now that I've got the crown of Lower Egypt —"

Sadie groaned, "You'll be going for the crown of Upper Egypt. Then you'll put them together and rule the world."

He grinned. "You were always the smarter out of you and your brother, Sadie Kane. But first I have to destroy you two. Nothing personal. It's just that when you're doing hybrid Greek-Egyptian magic, I've found that a little blood, especially both Demigod and Magician at once is a great catalyst. Now, if you'll just hold still —"

I lunged forward and jabbed him with my sword.

Amazingly, Riptide went straight into his gut.

I so rarely succeed that I just crouched there, stunned, my hand trembling on

the hilt.

"Wow." Setne looked down at the blood on his powder-blue shirt. "Nice job."

"Thanks." I tried to yank out Riptide, but it seemed to be stuck. "So… you can die now if it's not too much trouble."

Setne smiled apologetically. "About that...I'm beyond dying now. At this point—" He tapped the blade. "Get it? This point? I'm afraid all you can do is make me stronger!"

His red crown began to glow.

For once, my instincts saved my life. Despite the klutz spell Setne had hexed me with, I somehow managed to get to my feet, grab Sadie, and haul her as far from the magician as possible.

I dropped to the ground at the archway as a massive roar shook the courtyard. Trees were uprooted. Windows shattered. Bricks peeled off the wall, and everything in sight hurtled toward Setne as if he'd become the new center of gravity. Even Sadie's magical bonds were stripped away. It took all my strength to hold her with one arm while gripping the corner of the building with my other hand.

Clouds of debris spun around the magician. Wood, stone, and glass vaporized as they were absorbed into Setae's body.

Once gravity returned to normal, I realized I'd left something important behind.

Riptide was gone. The wound in Setae's gut had closed.

"HEY!" I got up, my legs shaking. "You ate my sword!"

My voice sounded shrill—like a little kid who's just had his lunch money stolen. The thing is, Riptide was my most important possession. I'd had it a long time. It had seen me through a lot of scrapes.

I'd lost my sword before on a few occasions, but it always reappeared in pen form back in my pocket. I had a feeling that wasn't going to happen this time. Riptide had been consumed — sucked into Setae's body along with the bricks, the broken glass, and several cubic feet of sod.

Setne turned up his palms. "Sorry about that. I'm a growing deity. I need my

nutrition..." He tilted his head as if listening to something in the storm. "Percy Jackson. Interesting. And, of course, I already know about your lovely companion, Sadie Kane. You two have had some interesting adventures. You'll give me lots of nourishment!"

I struggled to my feet. "How do you know my name?"

"Oh, you can learn a lot about someone from devouring their prized possession." Setne patted his stomach. "Now, if you don't mind, I really need to consume you both. Not to worry, though! Your essence will live forever right here...next to my, uh, pancreas, I think."

I slipped my hand into Sadie's. I really cared for her, even after just a few months of knowing each other and even less dating each other, I was not going to let our lives end this way — devoured by a wannabe Elvis god with a pillbox hat.

I weighed my options: direct attack or strategic retreat. I wanted to punch Setne in his heavily mascaraed eyes, but if I could get Sadie to the shore, we could jump into the harbor. Being the son of Poseidon, I'd have the upper hand underwater. We could regroup, maybe come back with a few dozen demigod friends and some heavy artillery. It couldn't be too hard to find somewhere with some canons. I had experience with those from the 3rd grade when I blew up a school bus by accident. Maybe some group was practicing Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture and I could nab the canons from there...

Before I could decide, something completely random changed the equation.

A full-sized camel dropped out of the sky and crushed Setne flat.

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of The Crown of Ptolemy. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**Sorry this is so late! I suffered from horrible writer's block trying to write this chapter. Particularly the beginning. If you re-read the first few pages of The Crown of Ptolemy, you'll probably see what I mean. I don't want to waste people's time going through all of the nitty-gritty stuff you probably don't want to hear about.**

**By all means, slam your hate down on me, I deserve it, lol.**

**In other news, I deleted the Discord server. There was a general lack of interest in it with only 4 people joining and only 3 of the 4 agreeing to follow the rules. If enough people want me to resurrect it, I will do so, but, otherwise, I will not be resurrecting the server that was a waste of my time to create in the first place.**

**You can still contact me at Son of Athena#9712 though. If you need a server to join that I'm in so you can DM me, I suggest the official Riordan Wiki server, which you access from the wiki website.**

**Also, I have a new idea for the Companion One-Shots - Jeopardy! Junior. Please let me know if you like or dislike this idea or have any suggestions for it in the Reviews or by PM-ing me.**

**The next update will be at 32 reviews.**

**Now, to answer the reviews:**

**Shadowhunter2099: Serapis is an interesting character, I'll say that much. I think Uncle Rick had to nerf him in canon so that he could be defeated by Annabeth and Sadie. That's my opinion, I could be completely wrong though. Glad to hear you're enjoying this!**

**iHateFridays: Lol. Thanks for letting me know about that. I think I fixed it, but please, let me know if I missed anything. I will fix it ASAP. Glad to hear you enjoyed this and it's not a big deal that this wasn't posted earlier.**

**AlEmily360: Glad to hear you enjoy this! I do my best to add things here and there,. For example, I often add extra comments from Percy because I feel like it'd be a good place to add some new content and I seem to excel at writing that stuff. I was toying with the idea of Percy quoting Bugs Bunny to Setne once he was discovered but eventually decided not to.**

**Just a fan of fics: Glad to see you caught my subtle guilt trip in my review to your story. I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations. It was a difficult one to start because of the lack of Carter's hieroglyph written on Percy's palm. I think the reason that destroying his future was so crucial because, without a future, he can no longer exist. The instant after the dog that represented the future was destroyed, it was the future, so, therefore, Serapis could not exist since he had no future. That's my take at least.**

**PoseidonTheBoss567: Glad to hear you're enjoying this. As for it being rushed, can understand why you feel that way, but I am simply following the storylines set out by Uncle Rick in the actual mini-series, albeit with edits to make it Percy/Sadie and things like that. Please, let me know where I switched to 3rd person, I will fix that ASAP. I suppose that's what I get for copy/pasting the bare bones of this story… lol. I like those stories too, but Annabeth will not be the jealous ex here, sorry. I already have plans for her future love life that I bet **_**nobody**_**, and I mean**_** nobody**_** will see coming.**

**Guest: Glad to hear you like it and that you're excited after 2 chapters, lol.  
**

**Shoutouts to:**

**Shadowhunter2099, iHateFridays, AlEmily360, Just a fan of fics, PoseidonTheBoss567, and Guest for Reviewing**

**Shadowhunter2099, Tgm102, asmellysmell, Kevin Spacey, PoseidonTheBoss567, SatanRanda and Just a fan of fics for Following **

**Tgm102, asmellysmell, , PoseidonTheBoss567, Just a fan of fics, ****user20071107, and **** for Favoriting**

**\- Asmodeus Stahl**


	11. The Crown of Ptolemy Part 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. I'm not dead, nor is this story abandoned. With that said, welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

Hello everybody, Carter here. So, Percy left off at Operation Hindenburg, huh? Now that was fun, let me tell you. And also completely my idea. Take _that_ daughter of wisdom!

[Might want to stop while you're ahead, Carter… I might just have to sic Percy, Sadie, and Zia on you for bullying me]

Right then. Before I get on with the story, I should _probably_ explain how the hell Annabeth and I knew to go to Governor's Island in the first place.

Well, Annabeth's mother sent her a vision that there was trouble brewing on Governor's Island, so she called me and we met up in Central Park before going to Governor's Island onboard the Freak Express.

* * *

When we arrived at Governor's Island, we could see that Percy and Sadie were in a bit of pickle. Now, I don't claim to be a genius, I leave that to Annabeth and her half-siblings -

[Bobby and Mason are by no stretch geniuses, Carter]

Fine, Annabeth and her _demigod_ half-siblings. Happy now?

[Better]

_As I was saying_, I don't claim to be a genius, but I think my spur of the moment idea on how to get the heat off of them was pretty genius. Before Walt/Anubis left Brooklyn House after he/they and Sadie broke up, he gave all of us an amulet, as he no longer had any use for them, being a god and all. I was lucky enough - well, usually unlucky enough, but, whatever - to get custody of Walt's most… interesting… amulet, Hindenburg the Camel. That camel has some serious flatulence issues, let me tell you. That's actually why Sadie named him Hindenburg, but that's beside the point.

I decided to drop Hindenburg on top of Setne to provide a distraction long enough for me and Annabeth to get down to where Percy and Sadie were and join them in the fight against Setne.

* * *

Just as I'd hoped, Hindenburg landed right on target, crushing Setne. Hindenburg then proceeded to bellow and fart on top of Setne as Annabeth and I approached the ground, courtesy the Freak Express.

"Carter!" Sadie cried out in relief as we descended.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to catch up. Hindenburg widened its eyes, bleated in alarm, and dissolved into sand.

Setne rose from the dust pile. His crown was tilted. His black jacket was covered in camel fuzz, but he looked unhurt.

"That was rude." He glanced up at me and Annabeth, descending on the Freak Express. "No time for this nonsense."

Just as the birds were about to rip his face off, Setne vanished in a swirl of rain.

Once Freak dropped us off, he took off, presumably heading back to Brooklyn House.

Sadie smirked at us when we arrived and said, "Took you long enough."

Annabeth and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes before I said, "I decided to give you two some time to make out away from our eyes. Plus, you seemed to have everything under control."

Before Percy and Sadie could respond, Annabeth slugged me in the shoulder and said, "Don't listen to Carter, he's being an idiot, as usual. The storm was messing up his locator magic."

Percy nodded and then said, "So this friend of yours, Setne… he's kind of a dirt wipe."

I snorted. "You don't know the _half_ of it. Did he happen to give you a helpful villain monologue? Reveal his evil plans, say where he was going next, that sort of thing?"

"Well, he used the Book of Thoth to summon Wadjet, take a selfie with her, devour her essence, and steal the crown of Lower Egypt from her," Sadie responded.

My response was about as eloquent as I could make it in this situation, "Well, fuck. That's not good. The crown of Upper Egypt will be next."

Sadie nodded, seeing where I was going, "And if he manages to put the two crowns together -"

"He'll become immortal," Annabeth guessed. "A newly made god. Then he'll start vacuuming up all the Greek and Egyptian magic in the world."

"Also he stole my sword," Percy said moodily. "I want it back."

The three of us just stared at him.

"What?" he asked. "I like my sword."

Sadie shook her head slowly and said, "Only you, Percy, only you."

I hooked my _khopesh_ and wand to my belt and said, "Tell us everything that happened. Details."

While we talked, Sadie muttered some sort of spell, and the rain bent around us like we were under a giant invisible umbrella. It's a pretty handy spell that I wish I could use, myself.

Sadie has a better memory, so she did most of the explaining about their fight with Setne. Though calling it a fight was apparently being quite generous.

When she was done, I knelt and traced some hieroglyphs in the mud.

"If Setne gets the hedjet, we're finished," I said. "He'll form the crown of Ptolemy and—"

"Hold up," Percy said. "Low tolerance for confusing names. Can you explain what's going on in, like, regular words?"

I frowned, but, before I could say anything, Sadie jumped in to explain to her boyfriend what I was talking about, "The _pschent_ is the double crown of Egypt, okay? The bottom half is the red crown, the _deshret_. It represents the Lower Kingdom. The top half is the _hedjet_, the white crown of the Upper Kingdom."

"You wear them together," Annabeth added, "and that means you're the pharaoh of all Egypt."

"Except in this case," Sadie said, "our ugly friend Setne is creating a very special _pschent_ \- the crown of Ptolemy."

"Okay..." Percy said, looking like he was following along, "But wasn't Ptolemy a Greek dude?"

"Yes," I replied. "Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. Then he died. His general Ptolemy took over and tried to mix Greek and Egyptian religion. He proclaimed himself a god-king, like the old pharaohs, but Ptolemy went a step further. He used a combination of Greek and Egyptian magic to try making himself immortal. It didn't work out, but—"

"Setne has perfected the formula," Percy guessed. "That Book of Thoth gives him some primo magic."

Sadie gave him a hug and a chaste kiss, before saying "I think you've got it. You're not as unintelligent as you think you are. Setne will recreate the crown of Ptolemy, but this time he'll do it properly, and he'll become a god."

"That would not be good," Percy commented.

"So if the cobra goddess - Wadjet, did you say her name was? - was in charge of the red crown, is there a god or goddess in charge of the white crown?" she asked.

"Yes, Wadjet is her name. And yes, there is a goddess that is in charge of the white crown. Her name is Nekhbet." I replied, my expression turning sour. "The vulture goddess. I don't like her much, but I suppose we'll have to stop her from getting devoured. Since Setne needs the Upper Kingdom crown, he'll probably go south for the next ritual. It's like a symbolic thing."

"Isn't up usually north?" Percy asked.

Sadie smirked. "Oh, that would be _much_ too easy, dear boyfriend. In Egypt, up is south, because the Nile runs from the south to the north."

"Great," Percy replied with a small groan. "So how far south are we talking about - Brooklyn? Antarctica?"

Sadie snickered a bit before saying, "I don't think he'll go that far. Our headquarters are in Brooklyn. And Manhattan is Greek god central, so, if Setne wants to establish a new seat of power, blending Greek_ and_ Egyptian -"

"He'd find a place in between Brooklyn and Manhattan," Annabeth said. "Like right here, Governors Island."

"Exactly," Carter said. "He'll need to conduct the ritual for the second crown south of this point, but it doesn't have to be_ far_ south. If I were him -"

"And we're glad you're not," Sadie said.

"- I would stay on Governors Island. We're at the north end now, so..."

Percy gazed south and said, "Anyone know what's at the other end?"

"I've never been here," Annabeth said. "But I think there's a picnic area."

"Lovely." Sadie raised her staff. The tip flared with white fire. "Anyone fancy a picnic in the rain?"

Percy opened his mouth to say something, but Sadie cut him off before he could say anything, "Yes, we all know you do, Percy. You can't get wet, so you have nothing to complain about. The rest of us on the other hand…"

"Setne's dangerous," Annabeth jumped in before Percy could respond. "We can't just go charging in. We need a plan."

"She's right," I said, relieved that I wouldn't have to witness my sister and her boyfriend banter over his cool water powers.

"I kind of like charging in," Percy said. "Speed is of the essence, right?"

"And _that_ is why our relationship works so well," Sadie muttered.

"Being smart is also of the essence," Annabeth said.

"Exactly," I agreed. "We have to figure out how to attack."

Sadie rolled her eyes at Percy. "Just as I feared. These two together... they'll overthink us to death."

Percy smiled in response and said, "Well, at least we'll be together in that."

I groaned and cut in before Sadie could respond, "That's enough. I don't need to see my little sister and her boyfriend fawning over each other. Let's make a compromise. How about we plan while we walk? We can slowly charge south."

The other three glanced at each other and shrugged before Percy spoke up for the three of them, "Deal."

We headed down the road from the old fort, past some fancy brick buildings that might have been officers' quarters back in the day. We made our way across a soggy expanse of soccer fields. The rain kept pouring down, but Sadie's magic umbrella traveled with us, keeping the worst of the storm away. I will take this moment to, once again, state my wish to learn that magic.

[We've been over this Carter, you can't because you're a combat magician. You get all your cool fighting tricks like your giant glowing chicken man. I get to learn the cool, helpful tricks]

I'm not even going to respond to that. Comments like that don't even deserve mention.

Anyway, as we walked south, Annabeth and I compared notes from the research we've done. We talked about Ptolemy, the mixing of Greek and Egyptian magic, and how badly the world could get screwed over if Setne succeeded.

Percy and Sadie, on the other hand, didn't appear interested in strategy. They were more interested in flirting and making out with each other. Honestly, I didn't really pay much attention to them, because, let's be real here, what self-respecting guy wants to see their younger sister making out with her boyfriend?

Not me, that's for sure.

Let me clarify though, I've got nothing against Percy. In fact, I think he's a great guy, but, still. No guy wants to see their little sister making out with her boyfriend. I didn't like it when it was her and Walt/Anubis, and I still don't like it now.

[Thanks for the vote of confidence in me, Carter]

[Shut up, Percy]

[Hmmm… how about no?]

[Shut up, or you're sleeping on the couch for the next week]

[*gulp* yes Sadie, sorry Sadie]

Right then, I'm not even going to ask about the couch comment. I do _not _need to know what my sister and her boyfriend are getting up to, though I'm sure it's purely innocent. I'm just going to get back to telling the story...

After a good 5 minutes of talking strategy, I nudged Percy, and said, "Were you listening, or were you too busy flirting with and kissing my little sister?"

Before Percy could respond, Sadie slugged me in the shoulder and said, "Don't bully Percy just because he's dating me. That's completely unfair, and you know it."

I rubbed my shoulder and said, "Jeez, Sadie, that hurts. And I'm not bullying Percy, I'm merely asking whether he was paying attention or whether he was too busy with you."

This time, it was Percy who weighed in, "Well, as you should very well know, paying attention to your girlfriend is always the most important thing. I'd rather do something interesting with her than listen to my ex and my girlfriend's older brother talk about concepts that I don't understand. No offense."

My face burned red at that. Percy's comment about paying attention to my girlfriend was a bit of a low blow in my opinion, but -

[No it wasn't Carter. He's absolutely right. You should really get some tips from him before our next date]

Wow, even my own girlfriend is ganging up against me. Harsh.

Anyway, if I could actually tell the story without being interrupted by the peanut gallery, that'd be great. Thanks.

I didn't even respond to Percy's comment at the time because I was too busy worrying over the implications of what could happen if Setne got his grubby hands on both parts of the pschent.

Annabeth sighed. "Percy, explaining things to you is like lecturing a gerbil."

"Hey, Wise Girl, don't start with me," Percy responded.

"Whatever, Seaweed Brain. We were just saying that we'll have to combine our attacks."

"Combine our attacks..." Percy said as he patted his pocket, presumably looking for Riptide, which, I've been reliably informed, always returns to his pocket if he loses it. "How do we combine attacks?"

I got a mischievous gleam in his eyes that I've been told makes me look more like Sadie, "We turn Setne's strategy against him. He's using hybrid magic - Greek and Egyptian together, right? We do the same."

Annabeth nodded. "Greek-style attacks won't work. You saw what Setne did with your sword, Percy. And Carter is pretty sure regular Egyptian spells won't be enough either. But if we can find a way to mix our powers -"

"Do you _know_ how to mix our powers?" Percy asked.

I smiled and said, "Yes, I believe I do. When Annabeth and I fought Serapis, she grabbed hold of my wand and it turned into a replica of the knife she used for years. Percy, since you're seemingly weaponless, why don't you take my new wand and see what it turns into for you."

I then drew my wand and handed it over to Percy, whose hand clenched around it and began to tear up as soon as he touched it.

"By the way," I said, "this may hurt a bit."

"Thanks," Percy said through gritted teeth. "Little late on the warning."

The ivory began to smolder. When the smoke cleared and the agony that I could tell Percy was in subsided, instead of a wand, Percy was holding a Celestial bronze sword that _definitely _wasn't Riptide.

"What is this?" he asked. "It's huge."

I whistled under his breath. "I've seen those in museums. That's a _kopis_."

Percy hefted the sword uncomfortably before he turned to me and said, "This one doesn't look like yours. Isn't yours called a _kopis_?"

"Mine is a _khopesh_," I replied "The original Egyptian version. What you're holding is a kopis - a Greek design adapted from the Egyptian original. It's the kind of sword Ptolemy's warriors would've used."

He looked at Sadie. "Is he trying to confuse me?"

"No," she replied brightly. "He's confusing _without_ trying."

I smacked my palm against his forehead. "That wasn't even confusing. How was that -? Never mind. Percy, the main thing is, can you fight with that sword?"

He sliced the kopis through the air. "I feel like I'm fencing with a meat cleaver, but it'll have to do. What about weapons for you guys?"

Annabeth rubbed the clay beads on her necklace, the way she does when she's thinking.

"Carter," she said, "those hieroglyphic spells you used on Rockaway Beach... which one made the explosion?"

"It's called - well, I can't actually say the word without making you blow up. Hold on." I rummaged through my storage locker in the Duat and brought out a sheet of yellow papyrus, a stylus, and a bottle of ink. I knelt, using my _khopesh_ as a makeshift writing desk, and scrawled in normal letters: _HA-DI_.

"That's a good spell," Sadie agreed. "It's quite fun to use. We could show you the hieroglyph for it, but unless you know how to speak words of power -"

"No need," Annabeth said. "The phrase means_ explode_?"

"More or less," I replied.

"And you can write the hieroglyph on a scroll without triggering the _ka-boom_?"

"Right. The scroll will store the magic for later. If you read the word from the papyrus… well, that's even better. More _ka-boom_ with less effort."

"Good," Annabeth said. "Do you have another piece of papyrus?"

"Annabeth," I said, "what are you doing? 'Cause if you're messing around with exploding words -"

"Relax," she said. "I know what I'm doing. Sort of."

She knelt next to Sadie, who gave her a fresh sheet of papyrus.

Annabeth took the stylus and wrote something in Ancient Greek:

Κεραυνóω

I couldn't make heads or tails out of it, probably because I'm not a Greek demigod. Percy, on the other hand, was able to.

"Ke-rau-noh," he pronounced. "_Blast_?"

Annabeth gave him a wicked little smile. "Closest term I could think of. Literally it means _strike with lightning bolts_."

"Ooh," Sadie said. "I love striking things with lightning bolts."

I stared at the papyrus. "You're thinking we could invoke an Ancient Greek word the same way we do with hieroglyphs?"

"It's worth a try," Annabeth said. "Which of you is better with that kind of magic?"

"Sadie," I said. "I'm more a combat magician."

"Giant chicken mode," Sadie said, smirking.

"As you very well know, my avatar is a_ falcon-headed warrior_."

Percy got a wicked grin on his face for a second before he said, "I think you could get a sponsorship deal with KFC or Chick-fil-A. Make some big bucks."

"Knock it off, you three," Annabeth said as she handed her scroll to Sadie. "Carter, let's trade. I'll try your_ khopesh_; you try my Yankees cap."

She tossed me the hat.

"I'm usually more of a basketball guy, but..." I muttered as I put on the cap and disappeared. "Wow, okay. I'm invisible, aren't I?"

Sadie applauded. "You've never looked better, brother dear."

"Very funny."

"If you can sneak up on Setne," Annabeth suggested, "you might be able to take him by surprise, get the crown away from him."

"But Setne was able to see through Sadie's invisibility spell. What's to say he can't see through your hat's magic" I said.

"That was _Sadie_," Annabeth said, "an Egyptian using Egyptian magic. I do agree that there's a high likelihood that he would see through the magic if it were _me_, a Greek, using it since it's a Greek magic item. For you, maybe it'll work better - or differently, at least."

"Carter, give it a shot," Percy said. "The only thing better than a giant chicken man is a giant invisible chicken man."

Suddenly the ground shook under our feet.

Across the soccer fields, toward the south end of the island, a white glow lit the horizon.

"That can't be good," Annabeth and I groaned at the same time.

"No," Sadie agreed. "Perhaps we should charge in a little more quickly."

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of The Crown of Ptolemy. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**I wasn't originally going to update today, **_**but**_**, I realized that it was Percy's birthday. So, the least I can do is update on his birthday, am I right?**

**I have recently started crossposting my first story, Lord and Lady Lupus, on AO3 under the same pen name. If any of you would like to check it out and give me a kudos or comment over there, I'd be ever so grateful.**

**Also, I have a new idea for the Companion One-Shots - Jeopardy! Junior. Please let me know if you like or dislike this idea or have any suggestions for it in the Reviews or by PM-ing me.**

**We are currently at 69 favorites (eyy) and 93 followers. I am flattered at the support I have gotten on this story. It means a lot to me. Thank you all. Perhaps we'll hit 100 followers before my next update… ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡° )**

**Now, to answer the reviews:**

**Just a fan of fics: Thanks for letting me know about that. I fixed it ASAP. Glad to hear you enjoyed the chapter! Keep up the good work with Even the Gods Will Burn!**

**iHateFridays: Glad to hear you enjoyed the ending! I do my best with the Percy/Sadie moments. I hope they were up to par this chapter as well!**

**Shoutouts to:**

**Just a fan of fics and iHateFridaysfor Reviewing**

**kat1017, darkstalkerking, deadrock3465, fenix22222, Mythology216, Fandomweirdo527, glace33, Cassiopeia13Rosales, sensitivegore, xJaneDoe, Gigicomics, and Niruzo for Following **

**kat1017, darkstalkerking, Mythology216, Fandomweirdo527, glace33, Cassiopeia13Rosales, and sensitivegore for Favoriting**

**Luq707 for providing feedback via Discord**

**\- Asmodeus Stahl**


	12. The Crown of Ptolemy Part 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. I'm not dead, nor is this story abandoned. With that said, welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence. **

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

**Today is September 11th, which, for those of us in the United States is the 19th anniversary of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11th, 2001. On this fateful day in 2001, Al Qaeda Terrorists hijacked 4 planes that had departed from northeastern airports bound for California. At 8:46 AM EST, American Airlines Flight 11 jackknifed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York City, killing all onboard and many, if not all of the people on floors 93 to 99, where it impacted the building. At 9:03 AM EST, American Airlines Flight 175 jackknifed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, killing all onboard and many, if not all of the people on floors 77 to 85, where it impacted the building. At 9:37 AM EST, American Airlines Flight 77 was flown into the western wall of the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States' Department of Defense, in Washington D.C., killing all onboard and 125 soldiers and civilians in the building. At 9:59 AM EST, the South Tower collapsed, killing all those inside it and many surrounding it. At 10:03 EST, the last of the four hijacked planes, United Airlines Flight 93, was brought down by its passengers, who were attempting to wrest control of the plane from the hijackers, in a field in Shanksville Pennsylvania, killing all onboard. At 10:15 AM EST, the damaged portion of the Pentagon collapsed, killing all those inside it that had not been rescued at that point in time. It is unknown what the intended target of that plane was, though it is assumed that it was either the Whiter House or the Capitol Building. At 10:28 AM EST, the North Tower collapsed, killing all those inside it and many surrounding it. The attacks claimed the lives of almost 3000 people. **

**This chapter is dedicated to all the innocent souls who lost their lives on or due to these dastardly attacks. May they all rest in peace.**

* * *

Hey all, Sadie here. So, if I recall from where my annoying brother left off, he was pissed because Percy and I were snogging - yes, snogging. One of the many better terms we Brits have. I mean, it just sounds cooler than 'kissing.' Anyway, as I was saying, Carter was pissed (nothing new there) then we all saw a bright white glow coming from the horizon and decided to charge over there a bit faster.

When we arrived, the vultures were having a party.

Past a line of trees, a muddy field stretched to the edge of the island. At the base of a small lighthouse, a few picnic tables huddled as if for shelter. Across the harbor, the Statue of Liberty glowed white in the storm, rain clouds pushing around her like waves off the prow of a ship.

In the middle of the picnic grounds, six large black buzzards whirled in the rain, orbiting our old buddy Setne, or Uncle Vinnie as I like to call him. The magician was rocking a new outfit. He'd changed into a red quilted smoking jacket - I guess to match his red crown. His silk pants shimmered in red and black paisley. Just to make sure his look wasn't too understated, his loafers were entirely covered in rhinestones. As much as I loathe the man, I can't deny he's got a pretty good fashion sense.

He strutted around with the Book of Thoth, chanting some spell, the same way he'd done back at the fort.

"He's summoning Nekhbet," I murmured. "I'd really rather not see _her_ again."

"What kind of name is Neck Butt, anyway?" Percy asked.

I snickered. "That's what I called her the first time I saw her. But really, she's not very nice. Possessed my gran, chased me across London..."

"So what's the plan?" Carter asked. "Maybe a flanking maneuver?"

"Or," Annabeth said, "We could try a diversionary -"

"Charge!" I yelled, barreled into the clearing, my staff in one hand, and my Greek scroll in the other. Behind me, I could hear Percy say, "My girlfriend is awesome."

I smiled at that. And yelled back at him, "You're awesome too!"

My plan was pretty simple: run at Setne and kill him. Percy, as it so happened, had the same plan as me. Even with his heavy new sword, he outpaced me. Two vultures dived at him, which he sliced out of the air.

I was ten feet from Setne and imagining the satisfaction of slicing him in half with magic when he turned and noticed me and Percy, who was gearing up to slice Setne in half himself. The magician vanished. Percy's blade cut through empty air.

He stumbled, off-balance, and seemingly angry.

As he stumbled around angrily, I smacked a vulture with my staff, making it explode into white sand. Annabeth jogged toward us, giving us one of those annoyed expressions like, _If you get yourself killed, I'm going to murder you_. Carter, being invisible, was nowhere to be seen.

With a bolt of white fire, I blasted another vulture out of the sky. The remaining birds scattered in the storm.

I scanned the field for Setne, and asked stupidly, "Where is the skinny old git?"

As Percy later told me, the skinny old git appeared right behind me. He spoke a single word from his scroll of nasty surprises, and the ground exploded.

* * *

When I regained my senses, my legs were buried under a blanket of mud. I struggled for quite a while, but couldn't seem to get free. My staff was knocked out of reach and my scroll was a muddy rag in my hand.

I looked up, but I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. Around Setne, the earth had ruptured in a ten-foot-diameter ring, splitting open like a seedpod. Plumes of dirt had sprayed outward and were frozen in midair. Tendrils of red sand coiled around Percy's legs and brushed against his face as they snaked in all directions. It looked like somebody had stopped time while slinging red mud from a giant salad spinner

Percy, who after the explosion was still standing due to the force of the explosion pushing him backward, stepped toward me, but the coils of sand pushed him back.

Somewhere behind me, Annabeth yelled out my and Percy's names. I turned my head as far as I could and saw her just outside the explosion zone. She was trying to charge in, but the earthen tendrils moved to block her, whipping around like octopus arms.

There was no sign of Carter. As annoying as he was most of the time, he was still my brother, so I could only hope he hadn't gotten caught in this stupid web of floating dirt.

"Setne!" Percy yelled.

The magician brushed the lapels of his smoking jacket. "You_ really_ should stop interrupting me, demigod. The _deshret_ crown was originally a gift to the pharaohs from the earth god Geb, you know. It can defend itself with some cool earth magic!"

I gritted my teeth. Percy and Annabeth had recently done battle with Gaea, the Earth Mother of Greek Mythology. More dirt sorcery was the last thing we needed.

I continued to struggle, my legs still encased in mud. I figured that now was as good of a time as any to break out my trademark humor, so I called out, "Clean up all this dirt right now, young man. Then give us that crown and go to your room."

The magician's eyes glittered. "Ah, Sadie. Delightful as always. Where's your brother? Did I accidentally blow him up? You can thank me for that later. Right now, I must get on with business."

He turned his back on us and resumed chanting.

The wind picked up. Rain whipped around him. The floating lines of sand began to stir and shift.

Percy managed to step forward, but it looked like he was wading through wet cement.

Behind me, Annabeth wasn't having much more luck.

I, on the other hand, managed to pull one of my legs free, minus my combat boot. As I retrieved my boot, I let out a string of curses, that, according to Percy, were even worse than his immortal horse friend, Arion's, which, apparently were pretty bad.

Setne's weird earth spell was loosening, but not fast enough. Percy'd only managed two more steps and I still hadn't gotten my second leg free when Setne finished his incantation.

In front of him, a wisp of darkness grew into the form of a queenly woman, that I immediately recognized. Rubies embroidered the collar of her black dress. Gold bands circled her upper arms. Her face had an imperious, timeless quality that I'd learned to recognize. It meant '_I'm a goddess; deal with it_.' Perched atop her braided black hair was a white conical crown, and, despite knowing this goddess, couldn't help wondering why a powerful immortal being would choose to wear a headpiece shaped like a bowling pin.

"You!" she snarled at Setne.

"Me!" he agreed delightedly. "Wonderful to see you again, Nekhbet. Sorry we don't have longer to chat, but I can't keep these mortals pinned down forever. We'll have to make this brief. The _hedjet_, please."

The vulture goddess spread her arms, which grew into huge black wings. Around her, the air turned dark as smoke. "I do not yield to upstarts like you. I am the protector of the crown, the shield of the pharaoh, the -"

"Yes, yes," Setne said. "But you've yielded to upstarts plenty of times. The history of Egypt is basically a list of which upstarts you've yielded to. So let's have the crown."

I didn't know vultures could hiss, but Nekhbet did. Smoke billowed from her wings.

All around the clearing, Setne's earth magic shattered. The tendrils of red sand fell to the ground with a loud slosh, and suddenly I could move again.

As I struggled to my feet. Annabeth ran to Percy's side.

Was I worried she was trying to make a move for Percy? No, definitely not. I know from talking with each of them individually that their time in Tartarus destroyed any potential seeds that a romantic relationship between them could grow out of.

They were a powerful team when fighting together, due to their years of experience fighting together. Setne didn't seem concerned about them, though.

He gave Nekhbet a mock bow. "Very impressive. But watch this!"

He didn't need to read from the scroll this time. He shouted a combination of Greek and Egyptian - I didn't know what he was saying in Greek, but, based on what I could understand from the Egyptian, it wasn't good. He was preparing to consume Nekhbet like Wadjet before her.

Despite not liking Nekh-butt much, I raised my muddy piece of papyrus and called out, "Percy, you and Annabeth get Nekhbet out of here. GO!"

At that, Percy and Annabeth immediately plowed into the goddess like linebackers and pushed her across the field, away from Setne.

As Percy and Annabeth removed Nekhbet from Setne's proximity, I took in a deep breath and then yelled at the top of my lungs, "_KE-RAU-NOH!_"

The explosion was, simply put, bloody amazing. Imagine the Jericho Missle scene from the Iron Man movie, except the explosions were more tightly concentrated together and a lot more of them.

[Of course, _you're_ the pyromaniac of the family]

[Not for long, dear brother]

[What are you imply- oh, oh… Really, Sadie?!]

[Why, of course, dear brother. Whyever wouldn't I imply something embarrassing about you? It's only natural for a sister to do that]

[She's got a point there, Carter. I do it all the time to Bobby and Mason]

[I hate you both]

[Make that three Carter, I'm with Sadie on this]

[Of course, _you're _on Sadie's side, Percy. Zia, you're on my side, right?]

[Sorry, Carter, but us pyromaniacs need to stick together]

[Even my own girlfriend betrays me, wow…]

[If you all will kindly shut up, I have a story to narrate]

Anyway, I wish I could tell you that I stood like Tony Stark in the face of that explosion, but I didn't. I came out of it with singed hair and a disintegrated scroll with a wide-eyed, surprised look on my face.

Where Setne had once stood was a smoking crater.

When I turned around to face Percy and Annabeth, I said, "That was bloody brilliant! Did I get him for good?"

"Nope!" Setne appeared a few feet away, stumbling a little. His clothes were

smoldering, but he looked more dazed than hurt.

He knelt and picked up something conical and white… Nekhbet's crown, which must've rolled off when Percy and Annabeth tackled her.

"Thanks for this," Setne said spreading his arms triumphantly - the white crown in one hand, the Book of Thoth in the other. "Now, where was I? Oh, right! Consuming all of you!"

Across the field, Carter's voice yelled: "_STAHP!_"

A bright blue hieroglyph scythed through the air, cutting off Setne's right hand at the wrist.

Setne shrieked in pain. The Book of Thoth dropped into the grass.

Twenty feet away from us, Carter appeared out of thin air, holding Annabeth's Yankees cap. He wasn't in giant chicken mode, but since he'd just saved our lives, I wasn't going to complain.

Setne glanced down at the Book of Thoth, still in his severed hand, but Percy lunged forward, thrusting the point of his new sword under his nose. "I don't think so."

The magician snarled. "Take the book, then! I don't need it anymore!"

He vanished in a whirl of darkness.

On the ground behind Percy, the vulture goddess Nekhbet thrashed and pushed Annabeth aside. "Get off me!"

"Hey, lady," - Annabeth rose - "I was trying to keep you from being devoured. You're welcome."

The vulture goddess got to her feet.

She didn't look nearly as impressive without her crown. Her hairdo was a mud-and-grass salad. Her black dress had turned into a smock of molting feathers. She looked shriveled and hunched over, with her neck sticking out like.. .well, a vulture. All she needed was a cardboard sign saying: '_homeless, anything helps_,' and I totally would have given her my spare change.

Well, I would have given her my spare change if I didn't already loathe her.

"You miserable children," she grumbled. "I could have destroyed that magician!"

"Not so much," Percy snarked. "A few minutes ago, we watched Setne inhale a cobra goddess. She was a lot more impressive than you."

Nekhbet's eyes narrowed. "Wadjet? He inhaled _Wadjet_? Tell me everything."

Carter and I joined Percy and Annabeth as they briefed the goddess on what had happened

so far.

When we were done, Nekhbet wailed in outrage. "This is unacceptable! Wadjet and I were the symbols of unity in Ancient Egypt. We were revered as the Two Ladies! That upstart Setne has stolen my other Lady!"

"Well, he didn't get you," I said. "Which I suppose is a good thing."

Nekhbet bared her teeth, which were pointy and red like a row of little vulture beaks. "You Kanes. I should've known you'd be involved. Always mucking about in godly affairs."

"Oh, so now it's our fault?" I snarked, hefted her staff. "Listen here, buzzard breath -"

"Let's stay focused," Carter said. "At least we got the Book of Thoth. We stopped Setne from devouring Nekhbet. So what's Setne's next move, and how do we stop him?"

"He has both parts of the _pschent_!" said the vulture goddess. "Without my essence, the white crown is not as powerful as it would be, true, but it's still enough for Setne's purposes. He needs only to complete the deification ceremony while wearing the crown of Ptolemy. Then he will become a god. I hate it when mortals become gods! They always want thrones. They build garish McPalaces. They don't respect the rules in the gods' lounge."

"The gods' lounge?" Percy asked.

"We must stop him!" Nekhbet yelled.

Percy, Carter, Annabeth, and I exchanged uneasy looks. Normally when a god says We must stop him, it means '_You must stop him while I sit back and enjoy a cold beverage._' But Nekhbet seemed serious about joining the gang.

That didn't make any of us less nervous. I try to avoid teaming up with goddesses who eat roadkill. It's one of my personal boundaries. Heck, I'm pretty sure _all_ of us had that personal boundary.

Carter knelt. He pulled the Book of Thoth from Setne's severed hand. "Can we use the scroll? It has powerful magic."

"If that's true," Annabeth said, "why would Setne leave it behind? I thought it was the key to his immortality."

"He said he was done with it," Percy recalled. "I guess he, like, passed the test, so he threw away his notes."

Annabeth looked horrified. "Are you crazy? You throw away your notes after a test?"

"Doesn't everybody, Miss Brainiac?" He snarked back.

"Guys!" I interrupted. "It's terribly amusing watching you two snipe at each other, but we have business." I turned to Nekhbet. "Now, your Scavenging Highness, is there a way to stop Setne?"

Nekhbet curled her talon fingernails. "Possibly. He's not a full god yet. But without my crown, my own powers are greatly diminished."

"What about the Book of Thoth?" I asked. "It may be no further use to Setne, but it did help us defeat Apophis."

At the mention of that name, Nekhbet's face blanched. Three feathers fell from her dress. "Please don't remind me of that battle. But you're correct. The Book of Thoth contains a spell for imprisoning gods. It would take a great deal of concentration and preparation..."

Carter coughed. "I'm guessing Setne won't stand around quietly while we get ready."

"No," Nekhbet agreed. "At least three of you would be required to set a proper trap. A circle must be drawn. A rope must be enchanted. The earth must be consecrated. Other parts of the spell would have to be improvised. I hate Ptolemaic magic. Mixing Greek and Egyptian power is an abomination. However—"

"It works," Annabeth said. "Carter was able to go invisible using my hat. Sadie's explosion scroll at least dazed Setne."

"But we'll need more," I said.

"Yes..." The vulture goddess fixed her eyes on Percy like he was a tasty dead possum on the side of the highway. "One of you will have to fight Setne and keep him unbalanced while the others prepare the trap. We need a very potent hybrid attack, an abomination even Ptolemy would approve of."

"Why are you looking at me?" Percy asked. "I'm not abominable."

"You are a son of Poseidon," the goddess noted. "That would be a most unexpected combination."

"Combination? What—"

"Oh, no, no, no." I raised her hands, horrified. "Nekhbet, you can't be serious. You want a demigod to host you? He's not even a magician. He doesn't have the blood of the pharaohs! He's also my boyfriend! There are 3 good reasons why this is _not_ happening"

Carter grimaced. "That's her point, Sadie. Percy isn't the usual kind of host. If the pairing worked, he could be very powerful."

"Or it could melt his brain!" I cried. "Plus, he's already very powerful. I'd also like my boyfriend with an un-melted brain, thank you very much.

Annabeth then jumped into the conversation, "Hold on a second. What exactly are we talking about here?"

Carter wagged the Yankees cap at Percy and said "Nekhbet wants Percy to be her host. That's one way the Egyptian gods maintain a presence in the mortal world. They can inhabit mortals' bodies."

Percy looked like he was about to vomit. "You want her "- He said, pointing at the frazzled old vulture goddess - "to inhabit me? That sounds..."

"Nekhbet" - Annabeth stepped forward - "join with me instead. I'm a child

of Athena. I might be better -"

"Ridiculous!" The goddess sneered. "Your mind is too wily, girl - too stubborn and intelligent. I couldn't steer you as easily."

"Steer me?" Percy protested. "Hey, lady, I'm not a Toyota."

"My host needs a certain level of simplicity," the goddess continued. "Percy Jackson is perfect. He is powerful, yet his mind is not overly crowded with plans and ideas."

"Wow," Percy said. "Really feeling the love here."

Nekhbet rounded on him. "There is no time to argue! Without a physical anchor, I cannot remain in the mortal world much longer. If you want to stop Setne from becoming immortal, you need the power of a god. We must act now. Together, we will triumph! We will feast upon that upstart magician's carcass!"

Percy audibly swallowed. "I'm actually trying to cut back on carcass feasting."

Carter gave him a sympathetic look that only made me feel worse.

"Unfortunately, Nekhbet is right. Percy, you're our best shot. Sadie and I couldn't host Nekhbet even if she wanted us to. We already have patron gods."

"Who, conveniently, have gone silent," I noted. "Scared of getting their essences sucked up, I suppose."

Nekhbet fixed her glittery black eyes on him. "Do you consent to hosting me, demigod?"

Percy glanced at Annabeth for support, but she looked as alarmed as I felt.

"I - I don't know, Percy," I croaked out. "I don't want you to do it, but I'm afraid you might have no other choice"

Suddenly the rainstorm fizzled out. In the eerie muggy quiet, a red glow lit the middle of the island, as if somebody had started a bonfire on the soccer fields.

"That would be Setne," Nekhbet said. "He has begun his ascension to godhood. What is your answer, Percy Jackson? This will only work properly if you consent."

Percy took a deep breath and said, "All right. Vulture me up."

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of The Crown of Ptolemy. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**I have a new idea for the Companion One-Shots - Jeopardy! Junior. Please let me know if you like or dislike this idea or have any suggestions for it in the Reviews or by PM-ing me.**

**Now, to answer the reviews:**

**Starkeeper-the-Storyteller: I'm glad to hear that you found it amusing. I try and work as much humor into the plot as I can without it seeming too much and being too distracting. Nice to know that it's appreciated.**

**Just a fan of fics: Interestingly enough, last chapter's break from the action was completely unintentional. It just so happened that that's where the natural breakpoints seemed to fall in my mind. I'm glad that you are enjoying the side commentary, that's what it's there for, after all :). Thank you, it was really nice to hit that funny number. Sadly, we're not **_**quite**_** at 100 follows yet, but I expect that we'll reach that number by the time Chapter 13 is released.**

**Guest: Glad to hear you like it so much! I do my best with what I'm given. If you enjoyed this chapter as much as you did the previous 11, might I suggest that you make a free account and add this to your follows/favorites? ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°) It would really mean a lot to me. No pressure though. xD**

**RandomReviewer: Well, if your reviews are truly random, I feel fortunate and honored that my story received one :). I'm glad you enjoyed that chapter so much. Like I said in my response to Just a fan of fics, that's just how the natural breakpoints of the story fell in my mind, and I took advantage of that to the best of my abilities.**

**Shoutouts to:**

**Starkeeper-the-Storyteller, Just a fan of fics, Guest, and RandomReviewer for Reviewing**

**Kei Ambrose, CandyKatie, Wiseman132, and LeonaidasRage for Following **

**Kei Ambrose, Nazue, Wiseman132, Junky, DebatorMax, and LeonaidasRage for Favoriting**

**\- Asmodeus Stahl**


	13. The Crown of Ptolemy Part 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Kane Chronicles, they belong to the man, the myth, the legend Rick Riordan.**

**Author's Note: Hey Everybody! Asmodeus here. Welcome back to another chapter of Greco-Egyptian Convergence!**

**P.S. If it's one of the Kanes telling the story, there'll be no POV notation, but rather the typical recording intro used in their series.**

* * *

**On September 12th, I woke up and check to find that user lumix68 added this story to his community, Percy Jackson best fanfic. It was truly a delight to see this. Thank you again so much!**

**Then, one week later, on September 19th, this story hit 100 followers. This was amazing to see, as my other story only hit that number months after I finished it. Special thanks to ****Schwarzerrossenritter (AKA SinisterFox on the ACI100 Discord) for being that 100th person to follow the story.**

**In light of this, I have decided to go ahead and write the second of my companion one-shots, which, if you haven't been reading my ANs, is going to be Jeopardy! Junior. Why? Because I have no clue what else to do, and there have been some requests for Carter and Annabeth nerding out. If you have suggestions for categories, PM me or leave a review with it.**

**I will also announce that I am going to be working on 2 stories simultaneously once this story is completed. One Percy Jackson story, which will likely be my last in this fandom for a while, and a Harry Potter story. I've been wanting to write HP fanfiction for a very long time, and I have a lot of ideas (see my profile for details) that I want to put to paper. **

**Thank you all again so much for all the love and support you've provided me and this story with. Now, on with the story!**

* * *

**Percy POV:**

Didn't expect to hear from me again? Expecting Annabeth? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but this part of the story is really only something I can tell accurately. Why? Two words - Vulture Goddess.

As soon as I gave my consent, Nekhbet dissolved into black smoke. She swirled around me - filling my nostrils with a smell like boiling tar.

What was it like merging with a god? If you want the full details, read my Yelp review. I don't feel like going into it again. I gave the experience half a star. Sadie really did _not_ give that justice.

Anyway, for now, let's just say that being possessed by a vulture goddess was even more disturbing than I'd imagined. Thousands of years of memories flooded my mind. I saw pyramids rising from the desert, the sun glittering on the Nile River. I heard priests chanting in the cool shadows of a temple, and smelled myrrh incense on the air. I soared over the cities of Ancient Egypt, circling the palace of the pharaoh. I was the vulture goddess Nekhbet—protector of the king, shield of the strong, scourge of the weak and dying.

I also had a burning desire to find a nice warm hyena carcass, stick my face right in there, and -

Okay, basically I wasn't myself.

I tried to focus on the present. I stared at my shoes…the same old pair of Brooks, yellow shoelace on the left, black shoelace on the right. I raised my sword arm to make sure I could still control my muscles.

'_Relax, demigod._' The voice of Nekhbet spoke in my mind. '_Let me take charge._'

"I don't think so," I said aloud. I was relieved that my voice still sounded like my voice. "We do this together or not at all."

"Percy?" Sadie asked. "Is everything okay between you and Nekhbet?"

Looking at her was disorienting. The "Percy" part of me saw my usual awesome girlfriend. The "Nekhbet" part of me saw a young woman surrounded by a powerful silver aura - the mark of an Egyptian magician following the path of Isis. The sight filled me with disdain and fear. (For the record: I have my own healthy fear of Sadie. She has kicked my butt on more than one occasion. But disdain? Not so much. That was all Nekhbet.)

"I'm fine," I said. "I was talking to Nekhbutt here."

I could hear Nekhbett growl at that name in the back of my mind before she yelled in my mind, '_You insolent little demigod!_'

Carter walked a circle around me, frowning like I was an abstract sculpture. "Percy, try to strike a balance. Don't let her take over, but don't fight her, either. It's kind of like running a three-legged race. You have to get in a rhythm with your partner."

"But if you have to choose," Sadie said, "smack her down and stay in control."

I could feel Nekhbett trying to take my body over to curse Sadie out. I resisted for as long as I could, but, unfortunately, my own willpower, despite being extremely strong, was no match for that of a goddess.

"Stupid girl! Do not tell me—" I forced my lips closed. The taste of rotting jackal filled my mouth. "I am so sorry, Sadie," I managed. "That was Nekhbet talking, not me. You know I'd never say that about you"

"I know." Sadie's expression tightened. "I wish we had more time for you to get used to hosting a goddess. However -"

Another red flash illuminated the treetops.

"The sooner I get this goddess out of my head, the better," I said. "Let's go smash Setne's face."

Setne, the ugly old git, really could not decide on his wardrobe. He strutted around the soccer field in black bell-bottomed slacks, a frilly white shirt, and a glittery purple trench coat - all of which clashed with his newly combined red and white crown. He looked like Prince from one of my mom's old album covers, and judging from the magic lights swirling around him, Setne was getting ready to party like it was 1999 B.C.E.

Having only one hand didn't seem to bother him. He waved his stump conductor-style, chanting in Greek and Egyptian while fog rose at his feet. Bursts of light danced and bobbed around him, as if a thousand kids were writing their names with sparklers. I didn't understand what I was looking at, but Nekhbet did. Having her sight, I recognized the Duat - the magical dimension that existed beneath the mortal realm. I saw layers of reality, like strata of glowing multicolored jelly, plunging down into infinity. On the surface, where the mortal and immortal worlds met, Setne was whipping the Duat into a storm - churning waves of color and frothy white plumes of smoke.

After Annabeth's adventure on Rockaway Beach, she'd told me how frightening it was to see the Duat. The four of us, me, her, Sadie, and Carter, wondered whether the Egyptian Duat was somehow related to the Greek concept of Mist - the magical veil that kept mortals from recognizing gods and monsters.

With Nekhbet in my mind, I knew the answer. Of course, the Mist was related. The Mist was simply a Greek name for the uppermost layer between the worlds - the layer that Setne was now shredding.

I should have been terrified. Seeing the world in all its infinite levels was enough to give anybody vertigo.

But I'd been dropped into oceans before. I was used to floating in the depths with endless thermal layers around me. Also, Nekhbet wasn't easily impressed. She'd seen just about everything over the millennia. Her mind was as cold and dry as the desert night wind. To her, the mortal world was a constantly changing wasteland, dotted with the carcasses of men and their civilizations. Nothing lasted. It was all roadkill waiting to happen. As for the Duat, it was always churning, sending up plumes of magic like sun flares into the mortal world.

Still, we were both disturbed by the way Setne's spell tore through the Mist. He wasn't just manipulating it. Magicians did that all the time. Setne was strip-mining the Duat. Wherever he stepped, fractures radiated outward, cleaving through the layers of the magic realm. His body sucked in energy from every direction, destroying the boundaries between the Duat and the mortal world, between Greek magic and Egyptian magic - slowly transforming him into an immortal. In the process, he was ripping a hole in the cosmic order that might never close.

His magic pulled at us - Nekhbet and me - urging us to give up and be absorbed into his new glorious form. I didn't want to be absorbed. Neither did the vulture goddess. Our common purpose helped us work together.

I marched across the field. Sadie and Annabeth fanned out on my right. I assumed Carter was somewhere on my left, but he'd gone invisible again, so I couldn't be sure. The fact that I couldn't detect him, even with Nekhbet's super vulture senses, gave me hope that Setne wouldn't see him either.

Maybe if I kept Setne busy, Carter would be able to cut off Setne's other hand. Or his legs. Bonus points for his head.

Setne stopped chanting when he saw me.

"Awesome!" He grinned. "You brought the vulture with you. Thanks!"

Not the reaction I'd been hoping for. I keep waiting for the day when the bad guy sees me and screams, '_I give up!_' But it hasn't happened yet.

"Setne, drop the crown," I called out, raising my _kopis_, which didn't feel heavy with Nekhbet's power flowing through me. "Surrender, and you might get out of this alive. Otherwise -"

"Oh, very good! Very threatening!" Setne said, cutting me off mid-monologue. "And your friends here…Let me guess. You keep me occupied while they set some amazing trap to contain the newly made god?"

"You're not a god yet," I snarked back in response.

He waved off the comment. "I suppose Carter is lurking around here too, all stealthy and invisible? Hi, Carter!"

If Carter was nearby, he didn't respond. Smart guy.

Setne raised his stump of a wrist. "Wherever you are, Carter, I was impressed with the hand-cutting off spell. Your father would be proud. That's what matters to you, isn't it? Making your father proud? But think what would be possible if you joined me. I intend to change the rules of the game. We could bring your father back to life—I mean real life, not that horrible half-life he's got in the Underworld. Anything is possible, once I'm a god!"

Around Setne's wrist, the Mist curled, solidifying into a new hand. "What do you say, Carter?" Above the magician, the air shimmered. A giant blue fist the size of a refrigerator appeared over Setne's head and pounded him into the ground like a nail into soft wood.

"I say no." Carter appeared across the field, Annabeth's Yankees cap in his hand.

I stared at the crown of Ptolemy—the only part of Setne still visible aboveground.

"You were supposed to wait," I told Carter. "Set the trap. Let me deal with Setne."

Carter shrugged. "He shouldn't have brought up my father."

"Never mind that!" Annabeth said. "Get the crown!" I realized she was right. I would've sprung into action, except Nekhbet and I had a moment of paralysis. The goddess wanted her hat back. But I took one look at the crown's eerie glow, remembered the way the cobra goddess had been devoured, and decided I was not touching that crown without latex gloves and maybe a hazmat suit.

Before Nekhbet and I could resolve our differences, the earth rumbled.

Setne rose from the ground as if on an elevator platform and glared at Carter. "I make you a perfectly fair offer, and you hit me with a giant fist? Perhaps your father wouldn't be proud, after all."

Carter's face contorted. His whole body glowed with blue light. He levitated off the ground as the avatar of Horus took shape around him.

Setne didn't look worried. He curled his newly regrown fingers in a _come here_ gesture, and Carter's avatar shattered. The blue light swirled toward Setne and was engulfed in his growing aura. Carter collapsed, motionless, on the wet ground.

"SETNE!" Sadie shouted, raising her staff. "Over here, you little weasel!"

She blasted the magician with a jet of white fire. Setne caught it on his chest and absorbed the energy. "Sadie, hon," he chided. "Don't be mad. Carter has always been the boring one. I didn't really want to grant him eternal life. But you - why don't you work with me, eh? We can have tons of fun! Tearing up the universe, destroying things as we see fit!"

As Setne said that, I wanted to rip him to shreds, '_Nobody_ _calls Sadie_ 'hon' _if I have anything to say about it._'

"That's - that's not fair," Sadie said, her voice trembling. "Tempting me with destruction."

She _was_ right. Tempting Sadie with destruction is not fair. Sadie loves blowing things up with magic.

She tried for her usual sassy tone, but her eyes stayed fixed on Carter, who still wasn't moving. I knew I should do something. We'd had a plan…But I couldn't remember it. The vulture goddess in my head was flying circles on autopilot. Even Annabeth looked like she was struggling to concentrate. Being so close to Setne was like standing next to a waterfall. His white noise drowned out everything.

"You know," Setne continued, as if we were planning a party together, "I think this island will be perfect. My palace will go right here, in the new center of the universe!"

"A muddy soccer field," Annabeth noted.

"Oh, come now, child of Athena! You can see the possibilities. That old fool Serapis had the right idea: gather all the wisdom of Greece and Egypt together in one place, and use that power to rule the world! Except Serapis didn't have my vision. I'll consume the old pantheons—Zeus, Osiris, all those dusty deities. Who needs them? I'll just take the bits and pieces I can use from all of them. I'll become the head of a new race of gods. Humans will come here from all over the world to make offerings and buy souvenirs."

"Souvenirs?" I asked with a snigger. "You want immortality so you can sell T-shirts?"

"And snow globes!" Setne got a dreamy look in his eyes. "I love snow globes. Anyway, there's room for more than one new god. Sadie Kane - you'd be perfect. I know you love breaking rules. Let's break all of them! Your friends can come along too!"

Behind the magician, Carter groaned and began to stir. Setne glanced back with distaste.

"Not dead yet? Tough kid. Well…I suppose we can include him in our plans. Although, if you'd prefer, Sadie, I can certainly finish him off."

Sadie let loose a guttural cry. She advanced, but Annabeth and I caught her arm.

"Fight smart," Annabeth said. "Not angry."

I, on the other hand, did not have any words of wisdom for her, so I just gave her hand a comforting squeeze.

"Point taken," Sadie said, though her arms still trembled with rage. "But I'll do both."

She unfurled the Book of Thoth. Setne just laughed. "Sadie, dear, I know how to defeat every spell in that book."

"You won't win," Sadie insisted. "You won't take anything else from anyone!"

She began to chant. Annabeth raised her borrowed khopesh, ready to defend her.

"Ah, well." Setne sighed. "I suppose you'll want this back, then."

Setne's body began to glow. Thanks to Nekhbet, I realized what was going to happen a split second before it did, which saved our lives.

Carter was just struggling to his feet when I shouted, "GET DOWN!"

He dropped like a sack of rocks.

A ring of fire exploded outward from Setne.

I discarded my sword and lunged in front of the girls, spreading my arms goalie-style. A shell of purple light surrounded me, and the flames rolled harmlessly over translucent wings that now extended on either side of me, making me feel like Falcon from Marvel Comics. With my new accessories, I was able to shield Sadie and Annabeth from the worst of the blast.

I lowered my arms. The giant wings retracted. My feet, floating just off the ground, were now encased in large ghostly legs with three long toes and the talons of a bird.

When I realized I was hovering at the center of a giant glowing purple vulture, my first thought was: '_Carter and Sadie will never stop teasing me about this._'

My second thought was: '_Oh, gods. Carter._'

Sadie must have seen him at the same time I did. She screamed.

The fire had blackened the entire field, instantly turning wet mud into cracked clay. The Mist and magic lights had burned away. My new sword was a steaming line of bronze slag on the ground. Carter lay right where he'd dropped, wreathed in smoke, his hair charred, his face red with blisters.

I feared the worst. Then his fingers twitched. He croaked out a sound, like "Gug," and I could breathe again.

"Thank the gods," Annabeth said.

Setne brushed some ash off his purple trench coat. "Well, you can thank the gods if you want, but they won't be around much longer. Another few minutes, and the magic I've started will be irreversible. Now, Percy, please drop that silly avatar before I take it away from you. And Sadie, I suggest you give me the Book of Thoth before you hurt yourself. There's no spell you could read that would harm me."

Sadie stepped forward. Her orange-highlighted hair whipped around her face. Her eyes turned steely, making her look even more like a young Annabeth.

I shoved _that_ thought out of my mind as soon as possible. I did _not_ need to be comparing my girlfriend to my ex. That's never a good thing.

"_No spell_ I _could read_," Sadie agreed. "But I have friends."

She handed the Book of Thoth to Annabeth, who blinked in surprise. "Um… Sadie?"

Setne chuckled. "What's _she_ going to do? She may be smart, but she can't read Old Egyptian."

Sadie gripped Annabeth's forearm. "Miss Chase," she said formally, "I have one word for you."

She leaned in and whispered something in Annabeth's ear.

Annabeth's face transformed. Only once before had I seen her with such an expression of pure wonder: when she beheld the gods' palaces on Mount Olympus.

Sadie turned to me. "Percy…Annabeth has work to do. I need to tend to my brother. Why don't you keep our friend Setne entertained?"

Annabeth opened the scroll. She began to read aloud in Ancient Egyptian. Glowing hieroglyphs floated off the papyrus. They swirled in the air around her, mixing with Greek words as if Annabeth was adding her own commentary to the spell.

Setne looked even more surprised than I was. He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. "That's not… Hold on, now. No!"

He raised his arms to cast some counterspell. His crown began to glow.

I needed to move, but Nekhbet wasn't helping.

She was a little too focused on Carter, who smelled charbroiled and yummy.

'T_hat one is weak,_' she murmured in my mind. '_Dead soon. The weak must die._'

Anger gave me the upper hand. Carter Kane may have been my girlfriend's brother, but, more importantly, _he was my friend_. I would _not_ sit around while my friend died.

'_Move,_' I told Nekhbet. And I took control of the vulture avatar.

Before Setne could finish casting his spell, I grabbed him in my spectral claws and carried him into the sky.

Now…I live and breathe weirdness. It goes with the territory when you're a demigod. But there are still moments when I do a mental double-take: like when I'm flying upward inside a giant glowing vulture, flapping my arms to control make-believe wings, holding an almost-immortal magician in my talons… all so I can steal his hat.

That hat was not coming off, either.

I spiraled into the storm, shaking Setne, trying to knock the crown off his head, but the dude must have fastened it to his pompadour with superglue.

He blasted me with fire and flashes of light. My bird exoskeleton deflected the attacks, but each time, the purple avatar dimmed, and my wings felt heavier.

"Percy Jackson!" Setne writhed in my claws. "This is a waste of time!"

I didn't bother responding. The strain of combat was quickly taking its toll. When we first met to fight the Loing Island Swamp Monster (the _petsuchos_ for those of you not paying attention), Sadie had warned me that magic could literally burn up a magician if he or she used too much at once. I guessed that applied to demigods, too. Every time Setne blasted me or tried to wriggle out of my grip with his near-godly strength, my head throbbed. My eyesight dimmed. Soon I was drenched in sweat.

I hoped Sadie was helping Carter. I hoped Annabeth was finishing whatever super-weird spell she'd been chanting so we could trap Setne, because I couldn't stay airborne much longer.

We broke through the top of the cloud layer. Setne stopped fighting, which surprised me so much, I almost dropped him. Then coldness began to seep through my vulture avatar, chilling my wet clothes, soaking into my bones. It was a subtler kind of attack—probing for weakness—and I knew I couldn't allow it. I curled my vulture feet tighter around Setne's chest, hoping to crush him.

"Percy, Percy." His tone made it sound like we were a couple of bros on a night out. "Don't you see what an incredible opportunity this is? A perfect _do-over_. You of all people should appreciate that. The Olympians once offered you their most valuable gift. They offered to make you a god, didn't they? And you - you lovable idiot - you turned them down! This is your chance to correct that mistake."

My avatar flickered and blinked like a bad fluorescent tube. Nekhbet, my brain buddy, turned her attention inward.

'_You turned down immortality?_' Her voice was incredulous, offended.

She scanned my memories. I saw my own past from her dry, cynical point of view: I stood in the throne room of Mount Olympus after the war against the Titans. Zeus offered me a reward: godhood. I turned him down flat. I wanted justice for other demigods instead. I wanted the gods to stop being jerks and to pay attention to their kids.

A stupid request. A naive thing to wish for. I gave up power. You _never_ give up power.

I struggled to keep my grip on Setne. "Nekhbet, those are _your_ thoughts, not mine. I made the right choice."

'_Then you are a fool,_' the vulture goddess hissed.

"Yeah, pal," Setne said, who apparently could hear her. "I gotta agree with Nekhbet on this one. You did the noble thing. How did that work out? Did the gods honor their promises?"

I couldn't separate Nekhbet's bitterness from my own feelings. Sure, I grumbled about the gods all the time, but I'd never regretted my decision to stay mortal. I had a girlfriend. I had a family. I had my whole life ahead of me - assuming I could stay alive.

Now… maybe it was just Nekhbet in my mind, or Setne toying with me, but I started to wonder if I'd made a huge blunder.

"I get it, kid." Setne's voice was full of pity. "The gods are your family. You want to think they're good. You want to make them proud. I wanted that with my family. My dad was Ramses the Great, you know."

I was gliding in a lazy circle now, my left wing carving the tops of the storm clouds. Setne's crown glowed more brightly. His aura grew colder, numbing my limbs and turning my thoughts sluggish. I knew I was in trouble, but I couldn't think of what to do about it.

"It's hard having a powerful dad," Setne continued. "Ramses was the pharaoh, of course, so most of the time he was hosting the god Horus. That made him distant, to say the least. I kept thinking, If I just make the right choices and prove I'm a good kid, he'll eventually notice me. He'll treat me right. But the thing is, the gods don't care about mortals, even their children. Look into the vulture's mind if you don't believe me. Behave like a good little boy, act all noble—that just makes it easier for the gods to ignore you. The only way to get their respect is to act up, be _bad_, and take what you want!"

Nekhbet didn't try to convince me otherwise. She was the protector goddess of the pharaohs, but she didn't care about them as individual humans. She cared about maintaining the power of Egypt, which in turn kept the worship of the gods alive. She certainly didn't care about noble acts or fairness. Only the weak demanded fairness. The weak were carcasses waiting to die - appetizers in the long dinner of Nekhbet's eternal life.

"You're a good kid," Setne told me. "A lot nicer than the goddess you're trying to host. But you've got to see the truth. You should've taken Zeus's offer. You would be a god now. You'd be strong enough to make those changes you asked for!"

'_Strength is good,_' Nekhbet agreed. '_Immortality is good._'

"I'm giving you a second chance," Setne said. "Help me out, Percy. Become a god."

We turned in the air as Nekhbet's consciousness separated from mine. She'd forgotten which of us was the enemy. Nekhbet favored the strong. Setne was strong. I was weak.

I remembered the way Setne had been strip-mining the Duat - cutting fissures in reality, destroying the entire cosmic order to make himself immortal.

'_I'll just take the bits and pieces I can use,_' he'd told Sadie.

My thoughts finally cleared. I understood how Setne operated, how he'd beaten us so badly up till now.

"You're looking for a way into my mind," I said. "Something you can relate to and use against me. But I'm not like you. I don't want immortality, especially not if it rips the world apart."

Setne smiled. "Well, it was worth a try. Especially since I made you lose control of your vulture!"

An explosion of cold shattered my avatar. Suddenly I was falling.

My one advantage: I'd been holding Setne in my claws, which meant he was directly below me. I slammed right into him and locked my arms around his chest. We plummeted together through the clouds.

I shivered so badly, I was surprised I could stay conscious. Frost caked my clothes. Wind and ice stung my eyes. I felt like I was downhill skiing without a mask.

I'm not sure why Setne didn't just magic himself away. I suppose even a powerful magician can succumb to panic. When you're free-falling, you forget to think rationally: '_Gee, I have spells and stuff_.' Instead, your animal brain takes over and you think: '_OH MY GOD THIS KID IS HOLDING ON TO ME AND I'M TRAPPED AND FALLING AND I'M GOING TO DIE!_'

Even though I was seconds away from becoming vulture hors d'oeuvres, Setne's squawking, and flapping brought me some satisfaction.

If we'd fallen straight down, I would've hit solid ground and died. No question.

Fortunately, the winds were strong, and Governors Island was a small target in a very big harbor.

We hit the water with a wonderfully familiar _KA-FLOOM!_

My pain disappeared. Warmth surged back into my limbs. Saltwater swirled around me, filling me with new energy. Seawater always did good things for me, but normally not this fast. Maybe the presence of Nekhbet ramped up my healing. Maybe my dad Poseidon was trying to do me a favor.

Whatever the case, I felt great. I grabbed Setne by the throat with one hand and began to squeeze. He fought like a demon. (Believe me, I know. I've fought a few.) The crown of Ptolemy glowed in the water, steaming like a volcanic vent. Setne clawed at my arm and exhaled streams of bubbles - maybe trying to cast spells, or maybe trying to sweet talk me out of strangling him. I couldn't hear him, and I didn't want to. Underwater, I was in charge.

'_Bring him to shore,_' said Nekhbet's voice.

'_Are you crazy?_' I thought back. '_This is my home court._'

'_He cannot be defeated here. Your friends are waiting._' Nekhbet responded.

I didn't want to, but I understood. I might be able to keep Setne occupied underwater for a while, but he was too far down the path to immortality for me to destroy. I needed to undo his magic, which meant I needed help.

I kept my grip on his throat and let the currents push me to Governors Island.

Carter waited for me on the island's ring road. His head was wrapped in bandages like a turban. The blisters on his face had been treated with some kind of purple goo. His linen ninja jammies looked like they'd been laundered in a burning wood chipper. But he was alive, and angry. In one hand he held a glowing white rope like a cowboy's lasso.

"Welcome back, Percy." He glared at Setne. "This guy give you any trouble?"

Setne flailed and shot fire in Carter's direction. Carter lashed the flames aside with his rope.

"I've got him under control for now," I said.

I felt confident that was true. The seawater had brought me back to full strength. Nekhbet was cooperating again, ready to shield me from anything Setne might try. The magician himself seemed dazed and deflated. Getting strangled at the bottom of New York Harbor will do that to you.

"Let's go, then," Carter said. "We have a nice reception planned."

Back at the burned soccer fields, Sadie and Annabeth had sketched a magical bull's-eye on the ground. At least that's how it looked to me. The chalk circle was about five feet in diameter, and elaborately bordered with words of power in Greek and hieroglyphics. In the Duat, I could see that the circle radiated white light. It was drawn over the rift that Setne had made, like a bandage over a wound.

The girls stood on opposite sides of the circle. Sadie crossed her arms and planted her combat boots defiantly. When she looked up at me, her lips curled upwards into a small smile and her eyes showed relief. She didn't need another dead boyfriend.

Annabeth was still holding the Book of Thoth. When she saw me, she kept her battle face on; but from the gleam in her eyes, I could tell she too was relieved. I mean… we'd been friends now for over half a decade now. Even if we weren't dating anymore, putting up with me for that long is a huge commitment.

"You lived," she noted. "No thanks to Elvis."

I lifted Setne by his neck. He weighed almost nothing. "He was pretty tough until I figured out his system."

I threw him into the center of the circle. The four of us surrounded him. The hieroglyphs and Greek letters burned and swirled, rising in a funnel cloud to contain our prisoner.

"Dude is a scavenger," I said. "Not too different from a vulture. He picks through our minds, finds whatever he can relate to, and he uses that to get through our defenses. Annabeth's love of wisdom. Carter's desire to make his dad proud. Sadie's -"

"My incredible modesty," Sadie guessed. "And obvious good looks."

Carter snorted.

"Anyway," I said, "Setne tried to offer me immortality. He tried to get a handle on my motives for turning it down once before, but -"

"Wait," Carter interrupted. "Did you say you've turned down immortality before? You never told me about this?"

"You can still be a god!" Setne croaked. "All of you! Together we can -"

"I don't _want_ to be a god," I said. "You don't get that, do you? You couldn't find anything about me you could relate to, which I take as a big compliment."

Inside my mind, Nekhbet hissed: '_Kill him. Destroy him utterly._'

'_No,_' I said. '_Because that's not me, either._'

I stepped to the edge of the circle. "Annabeth, Carter, Sadie…you ready to put this guy away?"

"Any time." Carter hefted his rope.

I crouched until I was face-to-face with Setne. His kohl-lined eyes were wide and unfocused. On his head, the crown of Ptolemy tilted sideways like an observatory telescope.

"You were right about one thing," I told him. "There's a lot of power in mixing Greek and Egyptian. I'm glad you introduced me to my new friend and girlfriend. We're going to keep mixing it up."

"Percy Jackson, listen -"

"But there's a difference between sharing and stealing," I said. "You have something that belongs to me."

He started to speak. I shoved my hand right in his mouth. Sound gross? Wait, it gets worse. Something guided me—maybe Nekhbet's intuition, maybe my own instincts. My fingers closed around a small pointy object in the back of Setne's throat, and I yanked it free: my ballpoint pen, Riptide.

It was like I'd pulled the plug out of a tire. Magic spewed from Setne's mouth: a multicolored stream of hieroglyphic light.

'_GET BACK!_' Nekhbet screamed in my mind as Annabeth yelled the same thing aloud.

I stumbled away from the circle. Setne writhed and spun as all the magic he'd tried to absorb now came gushing out in a disgusting torrent. I'd heard about people "puking rainbows," because they saw something that was just too cute.

Let me tell you: If you actually see someone puking rainbows…there's nothing cute about it.

Annabeth and Sadie shouted magic commands in unison. The funnel cloud of magic intensified around the circle, hemming in Setne, who was shriveling rapidly. The crown of Ptolemy rolled off his head. Carter stepped forward and threw his glowing rope.

As soon as the rope touched Setne, a flash of light blinded me. When my vision returned, Setne and the rope were gone. No magic lights swirled. The vulture goddess had left my mind. My mouth no longer tasted like dead hyena.

Sadie, Annabeth, Carter, and I stood in a loose ring, staring at the crown of Ptolemy, which lay sideways in the dirt. Next to it sat a plastic bauble the size of a goose egg.

I picked it up.

Inside the snow globe, a miniature model of Governors Island was permanently submerged.

Alternately running and swimming around the landscape, trying to avoid flurries of fake snow, was a termite-size man in a purple trench coat. Setne had made Governors Island his eternal headquarters, after all. He'd been imprisoned in a cheap plastic souvenir.

* * *

An hour later, we sat on the parapets of the old fort, watching the sun go down over the New Jersey coastline. I'd had a cheese sandwich and an ice-cold Ribena from Sadie's extra-dimensional stash of junk food (along with two extra-strength Advil), so I was feeling brave enough to hear explanations.

"Would someone explain what happened back there?" I asked.

Sadie slipped her hand into mine. "We won, Percy."

"Yeah, but…" I gestured at the snow globe, which Carter was now admiring. "How?"

Carter shook the globe. Fake snow swirled inside. Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear I could hear Setne shrieking underwater as he was given the blender tour of his tiny prison.

"I guess the snow globe idea got stuck in my head," Carter said. "When I threw the rope and sprung the trap, the magic conformed to what I was thinking. Anyway, Setne will make a great paperweight."

Sadie snorted, almost nostril-spewing her Ribena. "Poor little Setne—stuck on Carter's desk for eternity, forced to watch him do hours and hours of boring research. It would've been kinder to let Ammit devour his soul."

I knew who Ammit was, of course, but I had no wish to meet him. I didn't need any more soul-devouring monsters in my life.

"So the trap worked," I said, which I guess was kind of obvious. "I don't need to understand all the details -"

"That's good," Annabeth said. "Since I don't think any of us do."

"- but one thing I've gotta know." I gestured to Sadie. "What did you whisper to Annabeth that turned her into a magician?"

The girls exchanged a smile. "I told Annabeth my secret name," Sadie said.

"Your what, now?" I asked. Even after having knowing Sadie for two months and having formally dated her for a month and half now, I _still_ was extremely in the dark about many aspects of her world.

"It's called the ren," Sadie explained. "Everyone has one, even if you don't know it. The ren is… well, the definition of who you are. Once I shared it, Annabeth had access to my experiences, my abilities, all my general amazingness."

"That was risky." Carter gave me a grim look. "Anyone who knows your ren can control you. You never share that information unless you really have to, and only with people you absolutely trust. Sadie found out my secret name last year. My life has sucked ever since."

"Oh, please," Sadie said. "I only use my knowledge for good." Carter suddenly slapped himself in the face.

"Hey!" he complained as I started to softly snigger.

"Oops, sorry," Sadie said. "At any rate, I _do_ trust Annabeth. I knew it would take both of us to create that containment circle. Besides, a Greek demigod casting Egyptian magic - did you see the look on Setne's face? Priceless."

My mouth went dry. I imagined Annabeth invoking hieroglyphs at Camp Half-Blood, blowing up chariots on the racetrack, hurling giant blue fists during capture the flag.

"So my ex-girlfriend is a magician now, like, permanently? Because she was scary enough before."

Annabeth laughed. "Don't worry, Seaweed Brain. The effect of learning Sadie's ren is already wearing off. I'll never be able to do any magic on my own."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay. So, um… last question." I nodded to the crown of Ptolemy, which sat on the parapet next to Sadie. It looked like part of a Halloween costume, not the sort of headgear that could violently rip the world apart. "What do we do with that?"

"Well," Sadie said, "I could put it on and see what happens."

"NO!" Carter and Annabeth yelled as I started cracking up,. Realizing Sadie was joking.

"Kidding," Sadie said. "Honestly, you two, calm down. I must admit, though, I don't see why Wadjet and Nekhbet didn't reclaim their crowns. The goddesses were freed, weren't they?"

"Yeah," I said. "I sensed that cobra lady Wadjet get expelled when Setne was puking rainbows. Then Nekhbet went back to… wherever goddesses go when they're not annoying mortals."

Sadie then interjected, "The gods lounge, probably."

We all shared a laugh at that, remembering how surprised we were when Nekhbett mentioned its existence after we saved her from Setne.

Carter then scratched his bandaged head, and said "So…they just_ forgot_ their crowns?"

Traces of Nekhbet's personality lingered in the corners of my mind - just enough to make me uncomfortably sure that the crown of Ptolemy had been left here on purpose.

"It's a test," I said. "The Two Ladies want to see what we'll do with it. When Nekhbet learned that I'd turned down immortality once before, she was kind of offended. I think she's curious to find out if any of us will go for it."

Annabeth blinked. "Nekhbet would do that out of _curiosity_? Even if it caused a world-destroying event?"

"Sounds like Nekhbet," Sadie said. "She's a malicious old bird. Loves to watch us mortals squabble and kill each other."

Carter stared at the crown. "But…we know better than to use that thing. Don't we?" His voice sounded a little wistful.

"For once you're right, brother, dear," Sadie said. "As much as I'd love to be a literal goddess, I suppose I'll have to remain a _figurative_ one."

"I'm going to puke rainbows now," Carter said.

"So what do we do with the crown?" Annabeth asked. "It's not the kind of thing we should leave at the Governors Island Lost and Found."

"Hey, Sadie," I said, "after we defeated that crocodile monster on Long Island, you said you had a safe place to keep its necklace. Could you store the crown, too?"

The Kanes had a silent conversation with each other. "I suppose we could bring the crown to the First Nome in Egypt," Sadie repliied. "Our Uncle Amos is in charge there. He has the most secure magic vaults in the world. But nothing is one-hundred-percent safe. Setne's experiments with Greek and Egyptian magic sent tremors through the Duat. Gods and magicians felt them. I'm sure demigods felt them, too. That kind of power is tempting. Even if we lock the crown of Ptolemy away -"

"Others might try hybrid magic," Annabeth said.

"And the more it's tried," Sadie said, "the more damage could be done to the Duat, and the mortal world, and our sanity."

We sat in silence as that idea sank in. I imagined what would happen if the kids in the Hecate cabin back at camp heard about Egyptian magicians in Brooklyn, or if Clarisse from the Ares cabin learned how to summon a giant wild boar combat avatar. I shuddered.

"We'll have to keep our worlds separate as much as possible. The info is too dangerous."

Annabeth nodded. "You're right. I don't like keeping secrets, but we'll have to be careful who we talk to. Maybe we can tell Chiron, but -"

"Chiron already knows about the Egyptians. I told him after Saide and I encountered each other back in September while fighting the _petsuchos_," I said. "That wily old centaur already knew of their existence, though. Just like the Romans, he was sworn to secrecy. But, yeah. We'll have to keep our little task force here on the down-low."

"'Our little task force.'" Carter grinned. "I like the sound of that. The four of us can keep in touch. We'll have to stand ready in case something like this happens again."

"Percy has my number," Sadie said.

Carter and Annebth looked at each other and rolled their eyes in synchrony before returning their gaze to Saidie and chorusing together, "No shit, Sherlock!"

Now it was my and Sadie's turn to roll our eyes in synchrony and respond, "It's elementary, my dear Watson!"

We laughed for a bit before cleaning up our picnic stuff and getting ready to go our separate ways. Carter carefully wrapped the crown of Ptolemy in linen cloth. Sadie gave the Governors Island snow globe a good shake, then stuffed it in her pack, which she then promptly handed off to Carter, since Sadie and I had a date planned.

The girls hugged. I shook Carter's hand. With a twinge of pain,

"Take care of yourself, Carter," I said. "No more getting roasted in explosions."

He smirked. "I can't promise. But call us if you need us, okay? And, uh, thanks."

"Hey, it was a team effort."

"I guess. But, Percy…it came down to you being a good person. Setne couldn't get a handle on you. Honestly, if I'd been tempted with godhood the way you were tempted -"

"You would've done the same thing," I said.

"Maybe." He smiled, but he didn't look convinced. "Alright, time to fly. The initiates at Brooklyn House are going to be worried. See you later guys!"

Carter then turned into a falcon and launched himself into the sunset.

Annabeth then smiled at me and Sadie and said, "Have fun you two," before she turned away from us and headed over to the subway to take her to my mom's apartment for their weekly meetup to watch Survivor.

"This has been a weird day," I told Sadie.

She slipped her hand into mine. "I'm thinking cheeseburgers for dinner at P. J. Clarke's."

"With bacon," I said. "We've earned it."

"I love the way you think," she said.

"And I'm glad you're not a god." She kissed me, and I decided that I was glad too.

A kiss in the sunset and the promise of a good bacon cheeseburger—with that kind of payoff, who needs immortality?

* * *

**Author's Note: Please Follow, Favorite, and Review if you enjoyed! Anything familiar you see comes straight out of The Crown of Ptolemy. I did borrow heavily from it in order to make a better story, but there are still some changes from canon. **

**That's it, ladies and gentlemen. The end of canon Demigods and Magicians. Let me tell you, this chapter was a **_**bitch**_** to write. It clocks in at just over 7k words - my longest chapter ever. And that doesn't count my Authors Notes at the beginning or end of the chapter.**

**Now I take the reigns fully and bring us into the epilogue chapters of the story. I cannot confirm at the moment how many there are, but I do have a basic plan for what I want to happen. Final pairings for everyone are decided, and I can confirm that there will be at least one pairing none of you will see coming at this point in time. Well, you **_**shouldn't**_** be able to see it coming, but that's beside the point.**

**A few notes on things in the chapter:**

**I had to specify Falcon from Marvel **_**Comics**_** because his MCU debut was not until 2014, 4 years after this story takes place. That would be an anachronism, which I do my best to try and **_**avoid**_** having in my stories.**

**Those of you confused about the last part where Annabeth goes back to Mrs. Jackson's apartment to watch Survivor need to re-read my version of The Staff of Serapis because I mentioned the origin of that in one of the chapters.**

**There was a slight teaser in the chapter as to what's to come in the epilogue. Interestingly enough, it's nothing I had to build into the story, canon already provided it to me. Thanks, Uncle Rick!**

**Now, to answer the reviews:  
**

**SKTCreator: What can I say except, "you're welcome" Glad you enjoyed the update, and here's hoping you enjoy this one too!  
**

**iHateFridays: Naturally. He's Perseus Fricking Jackson, of course, he's gonna save the day. Which is why he got the POV this chapter instead of Annabeth. I just couldn't write this chapter in an Annabeth POV. It's too Percy-centric.**

**AlEmily360: It's fine, you're not under any obligation to review the story, don't worry. Nice to hear your back into fanfic, I understand taking a hiatus. I, myself, have done that a few times. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying this! As for adding in my own scenes, that's what the companion one-shots are for. It's rather tough adding in scenes to an already extremely detailed canon plotline. That's why I tend to rely on people talking in the background of the Kane's recording mostly for original content. However, the epilogue chapter/chapters will be completely original and something that, as far as I know, nobody has ever done. So, we'll see how that goes.**

**Shoutouts to:**

**SKTCreator, iHateFridays, and AlEmily360 for Reviewing**

**ThatGrace, Corinne Carmichael, JA50N, **_**Schwarzerrossenritter**_**, and juanpineda1914 for Following **

**ThatGrace, Corinne Carmichael, JA50N, and juanpineda1914 for Favoriting**

** \- Asmodeus Stahl**


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